World War Wizard
by Tegildess
Summary: Magical and Muggle worlds collide when Percy Weasley runs for Minister promising to bring down the International Statute of Secrecy. It's up to two generations of Weasleys and Potters to make sense of the new world order, if they can't stop it first...
1. Introduction

**Author's Note**

This is Part Three in a series of stories I've been writing, off and on, since 2007. A lot of the plot is predicated on the two previous installments: "A Muggle in Magical Britain" and "A Muggle in the Ministry of Magic," so, ideally, readers would have finished those two stories before starting on this one. But hey, it's not my job to tell you what to read. So if you're not caught up, or need a refresher (it's been a while, after all), here's a brief overview of what's happened so far:

Part One:

Edie Filbert, a Muggle girl living in Ottery St. Catchpole, accidentally stumbles into the magical world when she follows a group of strangely-dressed visitors in town to the Quidditch World Cup. Unbeknownst, her peaceful little village is home to a considerable number of witches and wizards, including the Weasley family.

Seeking refuge with the only other Muggles on site at the Cup, Edie finds herself targeted and tortured by a group of masked wizards she later discovers are called "Death Eaters," along with the farmer who owns the campsite and his family. But when the others' memories are erased, Edie manages to escape—with the unexpected help of a young man named Percy Weasley, working for the Ministry, and the surprising appearance of a wizard called Albus Dumbledore.

When the Ministry discovers the existence of the Muggle Edie Filbert and sends Dolores Umbridge to wipe her memories, Percy, feeling guilty for betraying Albus Dumbledore to the Ministry, once again comes to Edie's aid. Hiding out in Diagon Alley, Edie finds herself in a world stranger than she could ever have imagined. She's determined to keep her knowledge of the partitioned magical world, but she can't evade capture forever. Finally, after making her way to St. Mungo's thanks to a cursed frog and a lack of wizard diseases immunities, Edie gets her memory wiped.

But living in Ottery, she continues to come into contact with strange people and bizarre events. When her neighbors' (the Lovegoods') house explodes, Edie finds a copy of a newspaper talking about Dark Lords, Death Eaters, and a boy with a face she recognizes but can't quite place. Her half-memories draw her to the Burrow, through the Floo-ed fireplace and right into a Hogwarts under siege by Voldemort.

There, tortured by a Death Eater, Edie gets her memories back when the Cruciatus Curse breaks through the St. Mungo's healer's weak obliviation charm. After the battle, Edie gets home, but with full knowledge of everything she's seen and a determination to protect herself and the people she loves from the arbitrary spells and charms of wizards and witches who can use magic on Muggles with impunity.

Part Two:

Molly Kathryn Weasley, or Kate, is the only daughter of Percy Weasley and her mother Audrey Stevens. Unlike the rest of her cousins, she and her older brother Lucian Ignatius (or Iggy) are Hufflepuffs, destined to be outshone by Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione's daughter Rose, and tormented by Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny's sons James and Al. Meanwhile, Percy and Audrey's youngest son Arthur wasn't sorted at all: Arthur may be a genius among Muggles, but no one in the magical world thinks much of a Squib.

When Kate finds references to a mysterious E. Filbert in her Muggle Studies textbook, she begins to unravel secrets her parents have been hiding for years. She and her brothers have grown up listening to the stories of how her mother and father were the forces behind the Muggle Protection Act, a piece of legislation that limits what kind of spells can be placed on Muggles in violation of the International Statute of Secrecy. But "Audrey Stevens" is nowhere to be found in any of the Ministry records. Instead, there's the testimony of Edie Filbert, a Muggle woman who discovered the magical world completely by accident, and her estranged sister Sharon, whose memory was wiped mistakenly.

After passing the Muggle Protection Act, Edie changes her name to protect her family from any contact with the magical community, but does not give up her determination to get Muggles the equal rights under the law that they deserve. She has a plan, but she can't do it alone—and Percy Weasley is just ambitious enough to join her.

With the help of Ignatius, Arthur, Rose Weasley, another squib named Charity Burbage (granddaughter of the ill-fated Hogwarts professor of the same name), and their unlikely ally Scorpius Malfoy, Kate discovers her parents' secret: that Audrey Stevens is Edie Filbert, and that she and Percy Weasley intend to eliminate the barrier between wizards and Muggles once and for all. With elections for Minister coming soon, and both Percy and Hermione on the ballot, it's Weasley versus Weasley, and billions of lives are at stake.

Part Three is coming soon, and as always, thanks for reading!

-Tegildess


	2. Bewitched

**Bewitched**

"Time to tune in, listeners, because you're in for a treat! Tonight the political is about to get _very_ personal with our own special guest. You've read about him in the _Prophet_ and now you're going to hear him right here, live on Wizarding Wireless Network's prime time program, and _your_ favorite show, Witching Hour! I'm Glenda Chittock, and at this very moment I'm sitting next to the most controversial wizard in politics, the man the Granger campaign called "dangerous and deluded," the famous—or should I say infamous?—Muggle rights activist and Ministry maverick … it's Percy Weasley!"

(applause)

"Thank you for having me, Glenda. It's a pleasure to be on your program. I have to tell you—I've been listening to Witching Hour for years."

"Be careful now, Mr. Weasley. If you try to say how _many_ years I might just have to spell your mouth shut. Can't have my listeners finding out just how old and decrepit I really am."

"Glenda, you don't look a day over twenty-five."

(laughter)

"Well aren't you sweet. So tell me, Mr. Weasley—"

"Please, just call me Percy."

"Ooooh, well now, first name basis already? If you didn't have your lovely wife with you I'd say you were flirting with me."

"Don't you worry about me, Glenda. With all the 'dangerous and deluded' slurs going around this week, I can't imagine anyone would try to flirt_ back_ with my husband."

(laughter)

"Oh but don't you know, Mrs. Weasley? _Every_ woman just _loves_ a bad boy."

(whistles from the audience)

"Then I'm afraid they're going to be disappointed."

"Hmm? And why is that, Percy?"

"Because I'm not nearly as radical as the Granger campaign would like the magical community to believe."

"Come now, Percy, you have gone on record stating that you would _repeal_ the International Statute of Secrecy in Britain, forcing the rest of the world to do the same! That sounds pretty radical to me. Maybe the most radical move in politics in the entire_ history_ of witches and wizards!"

"Now that's giving me a little too much credit, Glenda. I am not proposing anything that hasn't been debated for centuries—since the institution of the ISS in 1692. But we're living in the year 2020. We've come a long way since the 17th century, and I don't just mean the magical community. Sometimes, living away from the rest of the world, we as witches and wizards forget that we are in fact a part of it.

"All of us—Muggles and magic users alike—are human beings, no better and no worse than any other. It astounds me that in the year 2020, when human beings have walked on the surface of Mars, witches and wizards are still hiding in the shadows! Most of the public will know that I drafted the Muggle Protection Act in the late 1990s; my concern for the safety of all human citizens of this great nation is quite sincere. My wife as well, you may know, is a Muggle herself.

"But I want more than a thicker wall between us. The Muggle world is making incredible strides in science, technology, and commerce—and while it might hurt to hear this, we are falling behind. We are not progressing. My opponent claims that repealing the ISS will take us back to the Dark Ages of magic users burning at the stake. I disagree. I think _we_ are the ones keeping ourselves in a dark age, of our own volition!

"And I'm not just talking about intellectual and economic upward progress—I'm also talking about the expansion of human rights throughout the world. How can we stand before the world, with the great gift of magical ability within us, without an equally great commitment to human freedoms?

"I know there are still witches and wizards who believe that we are superior by merit of our wands. Well, I say, prove it. Prove that we have moral as well as magical power within us. Prove that we are worthy of the wand. If we can do that, we have nothing to fear from the Muggle world.

"Do that, and we have a world's worth to gain. I, for one, think we can."

(cheers and applause)

"Well that was a very _passionate_ speech, and it gives us all something to chew on. But don't think you're off the hook just yet! I'll have more questions for Percy Weasley and his stunning wife—I just wish you could see her tonight, listeners, I think she has a tear in her eye!—Audrey Stevens … right after these words from our sponsors!"

Glenda Chittock slid off her headset and scratched her ear. Though promotional photos invariably showed her in some tight black bodice and flowing satin skirts, hair styled, make-up meticulously painted onto a heavily airbrushed (or the magical equivalent, at least) face, and sky-high heels on her feet, on her own set Glenda wore comfortable sweats, running shoes and spectacles such as any middle-aged woman would do on a weekend.

"Now _that's_ good programming," she said, in a matter-of-fact voice quite different from her sultry radio persona. "Off the record, want to tell me who wrote that speech?"

Percy smiled at his wife.

"Joint effort," he answered. "Audrey's just as committed to this cause as I am. In fact, she was the one who finally convinced me to make the ISS an integral part of my platform." He squeezed her hand. "I'm glad she did."

Glenda Chittock raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're committed to being on message, if nothing else," she said slyly. "Perfect family, perfect campaign. But I'll tell you a trade secret: perfect gets boring. You want to get ahead in the polls, you'll need to do something a little better than the doting husband act. You're running against a war hero, not just a sister-in-law, you know."

Percy's smile was suddenly cold. "Trust me, Glenda. You'll be amazed at how exciting this campaign's about to get."

Audrey Weasley, whose name was not really Audrey Weasley, glanced sideways at her husband, possibly the next Minister for Magic.

He wasn't the only dangerous one.


	3. Bewildered

**Bewildered**

September 1st, and it was the first September in Kate's memory that she'd felt so completely alone. In previous years Ignatius would have given her a list of fifty things to do before the Hogwarts Express gave its final whistle blow and pulled away. But Iggy had graduated—Head Boy with perfect Os on all his NEWTs—and since her younger brother Arthur was a Squib, that made Kate the last of Percy Weasley's children at Hogwarts.

Molly Kathryn Weasley, alone on Platform 9 and ¾.

The two paparazzi slouching against the wall, trying (and failing) to look like casual observers, didn't count.

Kate sighed, and pinched her itchy earlobe.

She had thought it silly when her mum took her out shopping in London the week before. Kate had never had any interest in fashion (nor had her mum, for that matter). It's not as though she'd be out of her uniform robes for more than a few days of the term, anyway—on a Hogsmeade weekend, maybe, if her prefect duties and unending studies didn't get in the way of a couple hours' worth of relaxation. And who would she go with anyway? James and Al Potter? Hardly. She'd burned that bridge the year before (more's the pity). Her cousin Rose? Kate would have liked to be closer friends with Rose, because Rose was clever and pretty and actually a nice person in spite of everything, but after Scorpius Malfoy stupefied Rose in the prefects' bathroom during that very confusing and unpleasant past year, Kate could hardly blame Rose for steering clear. And she'd rather _die_ than let Will MacMillan accompany her to Hogsmeade, even as a last resort.

But of course, there wasn't any use throwing a pity party, Kate chided herself. Even if she didn't think James was a rebel without a cause; even if she hadn't stood by while Rose's head grew a lump the size of a quail's egg on the bathroom floor; even if she could slip over the boundary between dimensions into an alternate universe where she and her Potter/Weasley cousins were the best of friends (and that would have to be a really, _really_ alternate universe), she still couldn't have been anything but alone at that moment.

Because of the election.

These days, everything came down to the election. That's why Kate was sitting patiently on her shiny new trunk in one of the brand new outfits the campaign publicity agent's assistant had authorized as appropriate. From the bottom up: oxford shoes and brown woolen tights, a knee-length tweed skirt and a navy blue cardigan, and a string of tiny pearls to match the pearl studs in her ears. Pearls! Had Kate ever worn pearls in her life?

No, the answer was no. She hadn't even had pierced ears before that summer, but the campaign's publicity agent's assistant's new intern (who was Muggleborn, incidentally) suggested that pierced ears would provide more opportunities for accessorizing. And when Kate countered that suggestion with what seemed quite obvious to her—that, being a witch, she could use, oh, say, _magic_, to stick earrings to her ears (which were hidden by her curly hair most of the time anyway)—they'd looked at her like they hadn't ever heard of magic. So they took her to a Muggle mall and literally stabbed a needle through her earlobes with some mechanical ear-piercing gun thing. Arthur would've known what it was called, but just thinking about the whole incident made Kate exceptionally frustrated—and she was a girl widely known for her unshakeable good cheer (_how very Hufflepuff of me, right?_ she thought bitterly). And worst of all, it was her own _mum_ who'd explained to her that using magic in little things like her appearance "deviated from the campaign's message" that Muggles and magic-users were all, deep down, really the same.

And yes, Kate did agree with that, but it didn't stop her thinking that her mum ought to have at least _pretended_ to be on her side.

But it was as much Audrey Weasley's campaign as her husband's—for, as Kate had discovered to her shock, horror, and delight (but mostly shock and horror) the year before, her mother was not at all who Kate had thought she was for her last sixteen years of life. "Audrey Stevens" was an alias, a false name her mum (really Edie Filbert) adopted when she and Percy Weasley got married, to protect her from her enemies (the same reason why public records had Kate and Iggy down as "Molly" and "Lucian," and didn't even mention their squib brother Arthur).

That, of course, begged the question: who were her enemies?

Oh, only every last witch or wizard who didn't like the fact that a young Muggle woman knew a whole lot more about the wizarding world and its governing systems than she should have. When Edie Filbert was no older than Kate was, she'd snuck into the Quidditch World cup (where she got tortured by Death Eaters), fought at the Battle of Hogwarts (where she got tortured by Death Eaters), and helped a much younger Percy Weasley (alias "Dad") pass the highly comprehensive Muggle Protection Act through the Wizengamot.

No big deal. And no wonder this election meant so much to the whole family. Even Ignatius passed up a great starting job offer from the Ministry to work full-time on their dad's campaign for Minister for Magic. It was all hands on deck if they were going to beat the enemy candidate come fall.

The enemy—who was also their Aunt Hermione.

So maybe Kate _was _justified in feeling a little sorry for herself. She was a Weasley with a huge extended family and not one of them could talk to her in public, because all eyes were watching (there, there! did the paparazzo with the black sunglasses just snap her picture?) and Kate the Hufflepuff, loyal to the end, wasn't going to spell the end of her father's run. Not when it meant so much to everyone she loved.

Kate reached down to the small cage at her feet and ruffled the fur of her cat, Hannibal. In a completely unprecedented act of cooperation, Iggy and Arthur had apparently gone to the pound at Ottery St. Catchpole, _together_, and picked out a pet for her, to keep her company at Hogwarts (the subtext being that Kate probably wasn't going to have any other friends).

"You got me a cat named after a _serial killer_?" Kate had asked incredulously.

Arthur and Iggy had rolled their eyes, _together_ (and Kate had to be honest, this family solidarity thing was just too darn spooky sometimes).

"Not like the movie," Arthur explained patiently, as though he weren't two and a half years younger than Kate. "The military commander—one of the greatest strategists in history. You _do_ know there was a real Hannibal, don't you?"

Kate crossed her arms defensively. "_Yes_, I know," she replied, with a sudden flash of inspiration. "Hey! Did you name him that because after last year we all, you know, crossed the Rubicon together?"

Arthur smiled painfully; Iggy winced.

"That was Julius Caesar, Katie," Iggy said patiently (if Kate were feeling less kind, she would have said "condescendingly"). "But that's really a very good allusion to… well… to allude to. Maybe Dad can use it in a speech sometime."

That was Iggy being gentle (_that is, patronizing_), but Kate could already hear him composing a memo in his head—_Note to self: Do not let Kate make any comments to the press. Repeat: Kate is NOT to talk to the press!_

"You like me, don't you Hannibal?" Kate asked plaintively, scratching the cat between the ears. He wasn't a very handsome cat; his fur was a dull gray with some patchy spots, like he'd gotten into a couple fights and the skin had healed over with scar tissue. Kate wasn't one to mind—her brothers said that Hannibal had been in the pound for just over a month, and since no one had adopted him (_imagine that_) they were going to put him to sleep.

Kate the Hufflepuff to the rescue! Arthur and Iggy knew she'd hate to hear of an animal getting killed just because nobody liked how it looked-and this way, they didn't have to shell out a knut. Some gift. Maybe if her dad won the election she'd go get a little unassuming cottage somewhere far from any other human being and become a "cat lady" like people joked about in movies. At least it would keep her out of the limelight. And out of these uncomfortable new clothes, for that matter.

This year, Kate would just have to practice being alone.

A cloud of steam descended over the train platform—the Hogwarts Express was about to pull away. Kate rose wearily and handed her trunk over to the enterprising young Gryffindor acting as a porter for a sickle apiece ("Atcher service, lady," the boy said in a clearly contrived Cockney accent). But as the steam and the smoke grew denser, Kate felt someone yank at her sleeve and nearly pull Hannibal's cage out of her hand.

"Hey! Who is that?" Kate exclaimed. Columnists were saying in the _Prophet_ that her father's platform against the International Statute of Secrecy was making a lot of people very angry—they way they wrote, it made Kate feel that they were hinting at something horrible happening to him or mum. Maybe this was it: maybe Kate was being kidnapped and they were going to hold her for ransom, or use her to blackmail her dad out of the race. Maybe the two paparazzi in black weren't paparazzi at all, but part of that Neo-Death Eater movement that was having such a resurgence in parts of Europe. She felt herself being pulled away from the platform. Maybe—

"Sorry about that. Did I startle you? I would have come to say hello on the platform, but with those photographers watching I didn't want to risk it. Wouldn't the _Prophet_ have a field day if Percy Weasley's daughter were seen fraternizing with someone with _my_ name? But there won't be any press at Hogwarts, so you're free in three … two … one."

Kate felt the ground shudder and move beneath her feet—she was on the Hogwarts Express, and she hadn't been kidnapped; or at least, it was a friendly abductor. Beside her, crouching out of sight of any windows was a pale young man with white-blonde hair and a pointed face. Scorpius Malfoy.

"Oh," Kate said feebly. "It's you."

"And to think I imagined you'd be pleased to have a friend this year," Scorpius replied in his usual dry tone. "That's what I get for trying to be outgoing. Come on, then."

Scorpius jumped up from his hiding place and motioned to Kate to follow as he passed by compartments filled with first years gorging on chocolate frog cards, overachieving fifth-year Ravenclaws already talking about OWLs, and quidditch aficionados rehashing the most recent matches. Briefly, Kate caught a glimpse of a boy with wild black hair holding court in one all-Gryffindor compartment. She quickly looked away.

Finally, Scorpius stopped at the very last compartment on the train. The door was shut, but Scorpius knocked, announced himself, and they both heard a muffled "Come in!" from the interior.

"After you," Scorpius said gallantly, with a completely foreign expression on his face: a grin.

Bewildered, Kate stepped into the compartment, Hannibal in hand.


	4. Welcome to Slytherin House

**Welcome to Slytherin House**

Hogwarts's first entering class after the end of the Second War comprised 17 Gryffindors, 9 Ravenclaws, and 12 Hufflepuffs.

There were no Slytherins.

One columnist in the _Daily Prophet_ suggested that wizarding families with a Slytherin heritage were keeping their children out of school so as to avoid the inevitable stigma and prejudice of belonging to a house that had produced the most evil and destructive wizard in all of human history. Another wrote that the Hogwarts administration was phasing out Slytherin House altogether—that no new students would be sorted into the silver and green, and that the second-years who had been so unfortunate as to be sorted therein would be the last generation of their House. Most Hogwarts professors believed that the Sorting Hat (acting autonomously, as always) was being deliberately selective about placing any new witch or wizard into Slytherin—if there was any chance that the child could reasonably fit into another House, that's where she or he would go. Gryffindor students self-righteously proclaimed that it was the right thing to do; the remaining Hogwarts Slytherins drew their peers' attention to the hypocrisy of celebrating a purge.

Everyone agreed that the debate would be fruitless until next year—next year, with a new crop of first-years that may or may not include a baby serpent or two.

But it happened again in 2000. And then 2001. And 2002. And 2003.

By 2004, the class of seventh-year Slytherins had every reason to believe that they were going to be known to history as the last Hogwarts Slytherins—ever.

So the Pre-War Slytherin Cohort (as the _Daily Prophet_ christened them) took their NEWTs and left Hogwarts with a considerable chip on their shoulders, and the acute loneliness that came with being the last of their kind. They held reunions with other Slytherin alumni every couple years, just for old times' sake, but the numbers of attendees dwindled so much that such get-togethers just got too depressing to continue. And still, the Sorting Hate refused to place anyone, _anyone_, into Salazar Slytherin's ancient and (dis)honorable house. They supposed, with great indignation and maybe a little shame, that the stigma was just too great. Times had changed. As Bob Dylan sang—well, never mind. None of them would have admitted to listening to Bob Dylan.

...

Beatrice Grave received her Hogwarts letter in August of 2012, to the great delight of her Ravenclaw parents. Beatrice had always been such a self-contained little girl that Mr. and Mrs. Grave had for a long time believed that their only child had been born without any magical ability whatsoever. Of course they would never have admitted it to her, they were a little embarrassed to have a Squib in the family. It reflected on them—purebloods both. What a relief it was to find Beatrice sitting by the Christmas tree early one December 25th making the tin soldier ornaments march around at her feet.

Their little girl wasn't a Squib. Far from it—her control of her incipient magical powers was really quite astounding for an eight-year-old. She was just secretive. She'd thought her parents would try to stop her practicing since she didn't have a wand yet. (And that _was_ strange indeed—though Mr. and Mrs. Grave were too happy with their unexpected Christmas present to think too much about _how_ exactly their daughter was doing such disciplined magic without a wand. No matter. As long as she could do it at all, everything was all right!)

So there was Beatrice Grave on September 1st, stepping onto the Hogwarts Express with the placid composure of a much older girl (_or a burgeoning sociopath_, her parents tried not to think). She waved from the window, her face betraying neither fear nor excitement, and found a compartment to herself to read the _Sunday Times_ and catch up on her Muggle news (another habit she kept secret from her parents).

Beatrice shook her head at the dismal economic forecast, winced at the accounts of the United States presidential election (_what a couple of prats those candidates were, both of them_, she though) and wondered idly what an infusion of Gringotts gold and silver might do for the world economy.

A knock on the compartment door. Beatrice looked up; a dark-haired boy with round glasses and a pronounced hunch to his high shoulders peered through the half-pulled curtains at her.

"Can I come in? Everywhere else is full."

Beatrice nodded briskly. The boy carried a bird cage with a scrawny-looking barn owl inside—as though he'd plucked the miserable avian straight off a telephone line or something. His clothes were noticeably worn and too, and he held his wand gingerly, as though he was afraid it would start shooting sparks and burn him at any moment.

Beatrice narrowed her eyes.

"You're Muggleborn, aren't you," she said.

"I'm a wizard," the boy replied defensively. "Same as you."

"No, I'm a witch."

"Oh," the boy said. "Well, that's what I meant."

"Although you know," Beatrice said thoughtfully, "I don't see why I _couldn't_ call myself a wizard. 'Witch' has such negative cultural connotations, and wizard, the masculine form, sounds a lot more powerful, don't you think?"

The boy sat down across from her. "Well you're Ravenclaw for sure."

Beatrice smiled. She looked much less stiff and unapproachable when she smiled, which, to be honest, wasn't very often. "My parents are both Ravenclaw. What are yours?"

"Oh, well," the boy said with a shrug. "I really am Muggleborn, like you guessed." He placed his wand beside him with a nervous glance out of his peripheral vision. "I shouldn't pretend it's not obvious."

"It's not _bad_ to be Muggleborn," Beatrice said sincerely. She might have been a snob, but she wasn't _that_ kind of snob (it might have been the single form of elitism she hadn't inherited from her parents). "I try to keep up with Muggle events and things. My parents never let me have a computer, of course—they said the magical energy in the house would break it—but I went to the public library on weekends and used theirs. Do you know much about computers?" Beatrice didn't know why exactly she'd grown so garrulous, but she was a quick judge of character and she decided almost immediately that she liked this boy. He struck her as intelligent, and there weren't many people as intelligent as Beatrice Grave. On that note—

"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Beatrice Grave." Beatrice stuck out her hand, and the boy shook it firmly. She liked that too. Only weak people gave weak handshakes—that's what her mother always said.

"I'm Calvin Pale," said the boy. "It's nice to meet you."

Calvin Pale was looking a little green. With a widening of his eyes, he suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth. Beatrice speedily tossed him the plastic bag her newspaper had come in. A second later, Calvin threw up. Beatrice politely looked away.

"I'm so sorry," Calvin said, mortified. "I have motion sickness. I took my Dramamine this morning... I don't know why it isn't working."

"It's a magic train," Beatrice said. "It goes a little faster than you're probably used to."

Calvin vomited again into the bag.

...

Calvin stuck with Beatrice on the boat ride across the lake. He found that if he kept his eyes glued on the lights of the castle in the distance—like flickering stars hovering around the stone—he could successfully avoid nausea. Lord knew how, but news had traveled fast on the Hogwarts Express that there was a first-year throwing up in one of the compartments. There was some snickering among their fellow-first years in the little rowboat (which rowed itself, incidentally), but Beatrice turned such an icy expression on them that soon the giggling froze in their throats.

Calvin was grateful. He'd never had a friend before.

It had been obvious from a very young age that Calvin wasn't "normal." Things happened around him—the most memorable (not that it was a _good_ memory) being the time that he visited the zoo with his dad and all the denizens of the reptile exhibit started hissing at him for no apparent reason. That certainly wasn't "normal." For a brief moment he'd even thought that he'd heard one of the snake say—

But of course that wasn't possible. Calvin didn't even dare mention it to his father.

Calvin spent a lot of time alone in his room "tinkering." That's what his parents called it—"tinkering." His father, an engineer, was proud to tell anyone that his son had a scientific mind. Mathematics was his great talent, and chemistry. And along with that, he had a gift for understanding electronics. Calvin was just in the final stages of building his own desktop PC from the ground up when he received his Hogwarts letter. Well that was a shock, to say the least. But the greatest shock of all was his first visit to Diagon Alley. He went with his mother, a formidable woman who haggled down the price of every single item on his school list. They weren't a rich family by any means, but the Pales certainly weren't stupid.

At Ollivander's (no longer run by Mr. Ollivander, apparently), the elderly witch behind the counter had a very difficult time finding a wand for Calvin—or rather, finding a wand that _wanted_ Calvin. After nearly an hour of waving sticks of wood around to no avail, Calvin started to wonder if there'd been a mistake and he wasn't a wizard after all.

But then—at long last—a 7-inch hornbeam wand with a unicorn hair core (Calvin, ever the skeptic, had to choke back a laugh at that) spewed forth a spectacular display of green and yellow sparks.

"Hornbeam," said the woman with a sniffle, a little misty-eyed. "That was my Garrick's wand. He was a braggart sometimes, but he always did say that hornbeam wands select very talented mates—visionary mates, obsessive mates." She peered down at him through large watery eyes. "Do _you_ have an obsession, young man?"

Calvin thought of his talent facility with technology. He thought of his chemistry set at home and the whiteboard on his wall, crowded with equations. All of a sudden, it seemed incredibly unfair that he had to give up everything he loved because some mystery school in Scotland said he was a "wizard." What a joke that was! Being a wizard didn't help him when Matt Orley cornered him on the playground after school and gave him a black eye. Calvin hadn't cast a spell on Matt to get back at him—he'd hacked into Matt's facebook and sent embarrassing photos to all the girls in the class.

No, it wasn't fair. Calvin was _good_ at science. He was good with computers. He was doing high school level math, and using that math to play the piano and any other musical instrument the school band conductor could throw at him (music notations were very mathematical; it was Pythagoras, after all, who discovered the octave). He decided then and there, standing in Ollivander's, that he wasn't going to give everything up just because he was supposed to do magic now. He might not even be good at magic—who could tell? But he was good at other things. And he'd keep getting better at them, no matter what this Hogwarts place was like.

"Did you hear me, dear? Do _you_ have an obsession?"

"Yes," Calvin told the witch. She didn't ask him what it was.

...

Beatrice whispered to Calvin a run-down of the three Hogwarts Houses as they stood in a cluster with the other first years, waiting to be Sorted.

"Ravenclaw's for the most intelligent, so of course I'll be with them," she said, completely matter-of-fact. "My parents are both Ravenclaw, and my grandfather, and his mother too. These things run in families sometimes. Gryffindor's the most famous House, of course—the Second War and all—with the brave and the chivalrous, supposedly. I don't know if that's true; my parents told me most Gryffindors are rather arrogant."

Calvin did not comment on this, though he found Beatrice calling a Gryffindor arrogant to be mildly ironic. He wasn't about to insult the only friend he'd made in his brief ten years on this earth. He probably wasn't the most likeable person in the world either.

"And then there are the Hufflepuffs—the leftovers," Beatice continued. "People say they're loyal and hardworking and all the rest of the consolation prize virtues. But they're not so bad. Of course, I wouldn't want to _be_ one."

"I hope I'm Ravenclaw," Calvin commented. "I was taking high-school level maths in school last year."

Beatrice raised her eyebrows, impressed. "I got perfect scores in mathematics, of course, but I can't say I ever enjoyed it. I'm much better in the Humanities—that's a cliché, isn't it, because I'm a girl? But I don't really care. I can speak three languages already."

"Let me guess—English, French, and Spanish?"

Beatrice laughed, and Calvin noticed once more that her smile made Beatrice Grave an entirely different person. _Beatific_, was the world, blissfully happy. It lit up her face.

"Latin, Mandarin, and Nahuatl." She beamed. "That's basically modern Aztec, you know."

Beatrice and Calvin grinned at each other.

"BEATRICE GRAVE!" the headmistress called.

Beatrice squared her shoulders, face solemn once more. Calvin gave her a thumbs-up. "Ravenclaw," he mouthed. She raised her chin and strode to the front with supreme confidence. The headmistress placed the old and venerable Sorting Hat over her head.

Beatrice had said that the Sorting Hat speaks to you, in your mind, so of course Calvin couldn't overhear what it was saying to Beatrice—but judging from the distressed expression on her face, he knew that something was wrong. He thought he saw her mouth "No." But to no avail, apparently, because tears were streaming down Beatrice Grave's face when the Sorting Hat exclaimed:

"SLYTHERIN!"

The bustle and chatter of the room fell silent. Beatrice, jaw clenched but still crying, walked stiffly to the empty table at the side of the Great Hall. No first year had sat there for twenty years.

Nobody clapped or cheered.

Calvin's head was spinning. What in the world was Slytherin? And why was their table vacant? There were banners for the other three houses rippling on the walls, but nothing for this _Slytherin_. It even sounded unpleasant—and Beatrice hadn't mentioned that it existed.

All of this occupied his mind so much that he didn't hear his own name called until some freckly kid with a sneer on his face jabbed Calvin in the side. Calvin glanced at Beatrice, alone at her table. Before the Sorting Had fell over his eyes, he saw her mouth "Ravenclaw."

_Well well well, a Muggleborn. You seem a little upset, eh? And why would that be? Liked being a Muggle too much. Ahh, yes, yes, that must be it. How unusual. Yes, Calvin Pale, you have a very, very unusual head_.

What a consolation, Calvin thought.

_Now no need to be smart with me, kid. I'm just a Hat. An inanimate object given sentience by magic. Nothing to be afraid of, and no need to be resentful. I'm just to conduit, you see, it's really all up to you._

Is that right? Calvin asked himself—well, the Hat. I sure don't think Beatrice chose to be in Slytherin, whatever that is.

If a hat could sigh, that's just what the Sorting Hat did.

_Well that was another unusual case, an unusual head. I'll tell you a secret—I've been trying to keep Slytherins out of Hogwarts. It's worked until now, and none of those would-be Slytherins are unhappy now, are they? Not any worse wizards, are they? No. I'm good at my job—been doing it a long time, kid. A very, very, _very_ long time._

All right, then. Do your job. What am I? Am I Slytherin too?

_Why, do you _want_ to be Slytherin?_

Look, Mr. Hat, or whatever you are, I don't even know what Slytherin _is!_ But you put my friend there for whatever reason, and, well, I don't really like people—er, things—that make my friends cry.

_Ha! What bravado! You might just be Gryffindor material. I can read in your head—you've never had a friend in your life. Oh, don't get defensive! It's only partly your fault. Some people are meant to be alone. Like your "friend," the Lady Grave. Oh, she thinks highly of herself, now, doesn't she. She does, believe me, I know. Thinks she could do anything she wanted, if she wanted. And probably she could. Ambitious, more ambitious than any student I've had to sort for a very long time. And cunning. Oh, she keeps it close to the chest, her secrets, her desires. She wanted Ravenclaw, but it's only because she didn't know. If any child was made to be a Slytherin, it's your friend there._

Fine, whatever. I can't argue with you. Like you said, you're a _Hat_. Just do your magic sentient sorting thing and get on with the next student. Chances are he _wants_ to be a wizard.

_Indeed. You're quite the sophist yourself, Calvin Pale. And single-minded. You have a sharp mind, incisive, but hardly indifferent. You could do great things too, with that mind, and that resentment. And there is a certain appeal in symmetry…_

Calvin gritted his teeth as he felt the Hat mull over his thoughts, his secrets and desires—things he kept to himself as well.

The Hat gave another sigh.

_Well, I did try._

"SLYTHERIN!"

All that year, the rest of the school called them Slytherin Adam and Eve.

And that was Kathryn Weasley's first thought too when she saw them sitting together in Scorpius Malfoy's compartment at the back of the Hogwarts Express on September 1st, Anno Domini 2020.

"Hello Kate," said the famous Beatrice Grave in the cool, sibilant voice she was known for. "Welcome to Slytherin House."


	5. The Bad Girls

**The Bad Girls**

Ignatius arranged to meet Ariel Pinkstone at a modest Muggle café just a block from Kensington Gardens. Reputedly the gardens around the palace were beautiful, but Ignatius wouldn't know because he'd never had time to visit. When in Merlin's hourglass would he have time to sight-see? Kate went once with their mum, true; she was excited to see the famous Peter Pan statue in the park. Kate _would_ like something like that, and in past times Ignatius had been prone to indulge it. She was his little sister—why _should_ she have to grow up?

The election changed all that, and the truth was, the pressure was probably hitting Kate the hardest.

Or Arthur. Ignatius tended to forget about Arthur.

Still, it wasn't as though Ignatius didn't have his own responsibilities. Like today, for instance. The eldest Weasley son felt his chest puff out at the very thought of the important job his father had entrusted to him.

Everyone knew about Carlotta Pinkstone, the recently-deceased radical activist. For the latter half of the 20th century Carlotta was single-minded in her protests against the International Statute of Secrecy. In past times, Ignatius was prone to laugh at her slogans and opinions ("_Stop Spell Suppression?" Oh, please)._ And even now it wouldn't be too smart for Percy Weasley to get too cozy with Carlotta Pinkstone's hallowed (and kind of hilarious) memory. Couldn't let the press start calling him a radical any more than already.

But that didn't mean the campaign couldn't solicit a donation from her estate. Everyone may have known about Crazy Carlotta, but not many people knew just how much she was worth when she died. Apparently, she'd had some very wealthy supporters in her time, and the Pinkstone Foundation for Free Magical Culture was—to use a colloquial expression—loaded.

That was how Ignatius found himself waiting (rather impatiently, truth be told) for the current executor of the Pinkstone Estate to show up for "coffee."

The executor happened to be Carlotta's great-great granddaughter Ariel.

Ignatius had never seen a picture of Miss Ariel Pinkstone, but he certainly didn't expect the woman who came through the glass door of the café, the bell to announce a customer tinkling gently over the sound of some employee's highly eclectic music playlist (_Is this "Mio babbino caro"? Did they just play "Billie Jean" a minute ago?)._

Ariel had the straight brown-black hair of her better-known ancestor, the same glittering hazel eyes. But unlike her twice-great grandmother, Ariel Pinkstone didn't look like a political radical who'd spent about as much time in jail as out of it. This certainly wasn't the kind of person who would stand on street corners handing out pamphlets. And while Carlotta Pinkstone had never been seen in anything but carelessly thrown together robes reminiscent of the mid-century Countercultural movements of which she'd been a part of (Ignatius believed that Muggles called them "hippies"). Well, most hippies didn't land themselves in Azkaban like Carlotta had, that was certain. Ignatius, a rigid duty-follower to the bone, shuddered at the thought. Surely no political conviction was worth breaking the law for, right?

Well, Ariel Pinkstone didn't look like she'd broken any law in her life (a few hearts, though, maybe). In a gray two-piece suit she looked like any other London businesswoman on her lunch break. She couldn't have been much older than Ignatius herself—witches and wizards got started in their careers earlier than Muggle young people, on average—but Ignatius couldn't ever remember seeing (or even hearing about) her at Hogwarts. He'd been Head Boy—he knew everything that went on in that castle.

Odd, that.

Ignatius stood to greet the sharp young woman.

"Miss Pinkstone, I'm Ignatius Weasley, campaign coordinator for—"

"Percy Weasley twenty-twenty. I know." She shook his hand perfunctorily. "I'm Ariel, but that's something _you_ already know too."

They sat down across from each other, each sizing the other up. Suddenly, Ariel burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry," Ignatius said. "Is something wrong? Do you need a glass of water?" He half raised his arm to signal a waiter.

"No, no, it's nothing. I mean, well, it is something." She laughed again—and this time she snorted. Ignatius raised an eyebrow.

"Miss Pinkstone—"

Ariel burst into another fit of laughter, but before Ignatius could get another word in she raised a finger to quiet him. After a deep, shaky breath, Ariel had composed herself. "I'm sorry _Mister Weasley_. It's just… isn't it funny?"

"Excuse me?"

"Isn't it funny how we're both acting so self-important and professional? I mean, I'm twenty-one. You're, what, eighteen? And both of us only have the jobs we have because we're working for our parents. Really, what is there to be so professional about?"

Ignatius felt his face redden. "I may be eighteen, and yes, I am here on behalf of my father's campaign, but I take my job seriously. This isn't just professional integrity for me—it's my family's future, and my parents' reputations. I believe in what I'm doing and … and…"

Ariel was about to start laughing again. Ignatius decided—for the first time in his life—to shut up.

The tinny, electronic sound of mariachi music began to issue from Ariel's suit jacket pocket. She cleared her throat and pulled out a Muggle cell phone. With a curt nod to Ignatius, she answered—and immediately sounded like the consummate professional Ignatius had taken her to be when she walked through the door.

_This_ was the woman in charge of a multi-million galleon foundation? He'd always assumed he was the hero of some epic drama, but Ignatius was beginning to wonder if he was the straight man in a comedy.

It would explain why everyone he knew insisted on calling him _Iggy_.

"…yes, absolutely. I'm here with him now. Yes, naturally. Of course, ma'am. Thank you. I'll get right on it."

With a sleight of hand, the phone—razor thin already—was gone.

"Sorry," Ariel apologized. "Just my mum, wondering if I'd gotten here safely. I tried to tell her that no one was going to mug me in _Kensington Gardens_, but she's quite the worrywart. So, where were we?"

Ignatius exhaled slowly. "Pretending to take our jobs seriously," he said drily.

"Ahh, yes of course," Ariel responded knowingly. "So let's talk money."

This was shaping up to be a strange morning for Ignatius Weasley.

….

Kate gaped at the Slytherin girl and boy sitting in Scorpius's compartment. Well, it might be better to say it was _their_ compartment and she and Scorpius were the guests. After all, they _were_ Hogwarts legends. Seventh-years now, Beatrice Grave and Calvin Pale were possibly the most recognizable (while at the same time unapproachable) students at the castle. Calvin in the dungeons mixing potions even Professor Slughorn had difficulties explaining to his younger students; Beatrice in the Restricted Section of the Library (completely legitimately too, since she always had a pass from the formidable Headmistress Harridan—previously Hogwarts's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor but now recovering in St. Mungo's from a bad case of scrofula—herself).

Needless to say, Kate was more than a little bit frightened to be so close to the two of them. Slytherin House was widely-rumored to have a private library filled with books on curses, after all. And while everyone could agree that Beatrice Grave was a model student who had never made a misstep in her life (hence the Head Girl badge on her chest), Calvin Pale was regarded a little more warily. It was also widely-rumored that Calvin had literally hundreds of curses in her arsenal, and that he wouldn't hesitate to use a single one.

But maybe that was just the myth; you can't be the first Slytherins in twenty years and expect your peers to think you're _normal_. And Beatrice was smiling so sweetly at Kate that she couldn't help but smile back.

"Hi, er, Miss Grave. Mister Pale."

Beatrice laughed, and for a split-second her expression wasn't nearly so sweet. But maybe Kate was seeing things. How could someone so bright and so beautiful be bad?

"Please, Kathryn, call me Beata. All my friends do." Kate glanced sideways to see how Scorpius reacted to that piece of information; she didn't know that Beatrice and Calvin _had_ any friends. In fact, she couldn't remember having _ever_ seen them interacting with another student by choice before.

"And you can call me Cal," Calvin said, nodding in agreement.

"We _would_ like to think of you as a friend, Kathryn," Beatrice continued. It's like the two of them were alternating lines from the same script.

To be honest, Kate found it kind of spooky. But she wasn't in a position to be choosy about her friends, and hadn't Scorpius proven himself a friend? Stupefying Rose aside—he'd helped her and her brothers out last year, and she owed him for that. So if Scorpius wanted to introduce her to the slightly sinister Slyterin duo of Beatrice and Calvin, well then, she'd try her best not to get goosepimples. Her mum raised her to have good manners, after all, and Hufflepuffs were nothing if not accepting.

"I…I'd like to be friends too," Kate said, trying out a wider, more genuine smile. Beatrice really _was_ quite beautiful—with her long auburn hair braided around the top of her head in a coil, a crown; with her creamy, freckle-free skin and perfectly-formed lips, her aristocratic nose, her high forehead. And even her black school robes couldn't hide Beatrice Grave's slender hourglass figure.

Kate realized that she really _did_ want to be friends with this stunning girl. And she'd thought Rose was beautiful!

"Well that's wonderful," Beatrice said, just as though she were reading Kate's mind. "And I hope you don't think me rude for failing to introduce myself until now, the two of us being prefects together last year. I'll admit that I was not very close to your brother Ignatius, and I know he was protective of you, and the company you kept."

Kate felt herself blush. Ignatius really was the overprotective older brother. For a moment she thought longingly of Ravi Singh, the only boy she'd ever liked, and how him being James Potter's best friend made him so terribly unattainable. She sighed. She'd never go to Hogsmeade with Ravi now, befriending Slytherins like she was.

"Older brothers, you know," Kate said lamely. "Do… do you have any brothers … Beata?"

"Oh no, I'm an only child," Beatrice replied. Her voice was so pleasant and smooth that it was almost hypnotic. Kate almost felt like she was under a spell, but then, she'd never interacted with someone she admired (and, a little bit, feared) so instantly. "Cal has a sister, though, don't you Cal?"

"Lilith," Calvin said shortly. "She's only four."

"Just wait until she's fourteen," Beatrice said conspiratorially. "I'll bet you a sickle that he won't be so indifferent then."

Kate laughed a little. She felt the cushioned bench depress slightly as Scorpius sat down beside her.

"All right, Beatrice, you've sucked her in," Scorpius said darkly. "Let's get to the point."

It was as though something had snapped—the spell was broken. Beatrice was sitting with her arms crossed, scowling at Scorpius. She didn't look nearly so gorgeous as a moment ago. Her eyes were a little too bright—maybe feverish, even—and her creamy skin seemed sallower somehow. Kate noticed the dark half-circles under Calvin's eyes, magnified behind his glasses.

"Well that wasn't very polite, Malfoy," Beatrice said in a biting tone (her voice was strident now, not half as soothing). "But fine—you want to get down to brass tacks? We'll get down to it."

Beatrice turned back to Kate, without a hint of a smile on her face.

"Naturally, we know that you're Percy Weasley's daughter. If your brother was here, we'd be having this conversation with him, but unfortunately, Ignatius Weasley is off in London somewhere droning on about something tedious to someone indifferent, I'm sure."

Kate felt affronted. She sat up a little straighter.

"Oh, come on, Kathryn, you know your brother's a bore. Still…" she glanced at Calvin, who shrugged. "Still, he was intelligent, and Cal and I aren't so sure how well you measure up in that department. But you're all we have."

Beatrice sighed as though she was put out by having to have this conversation with a girl she clearly resented as an inferior breed of Weasley. Kate gritted her teeth. If she were a braver person, she might have stormed right out of the room, but she wasn't about to make enemies of _these_ two.

"…a little uncalled for, don't you think?" Scorpius was chiding them. Beatrice ignored him, though Calvin gave Kate a strange look.

"Could I see your cat, Kate?" Calvin asked, gesturing to poor Hannibal, whose hair was straight up on end.

"Can't you do this later?" Beatrice asked impatiently.

"Not really," said Calvin, as he stood and took the cage from Kate's hand. "Don't worry—I'm not going to hurt him."

Kate had a feeling Calvin Pale had said that to plenty of animals before—right before turning them inside-out.

But to her surprise, Calvin was gentle with the cat, who—to Kate and Scorpius's shock (and Beatrice's apparent annoyance)—purred and rubbed his scarred head against Calvin's now hair-covered black robes. Calvin pulled out his wand.

"Wait!" Kate shouted, just before Calvin's wand began to release a large pulsating golden bubble (at least that's what it looked like to Kate), entrapping Hannibal and lifting him into the air at the center of the compartment.

Calvin muttered something to Beatrice in what sounded like Latin. She hissed back in the same foreign language.

Without another word, Calvin released the cat and handed a shivering Hannibal back to a furious Kate.

"How _dare_ you!" Kate shouted, her fury finally getting the better of her fear. "Who do you two think you _are_ anyway? And what _was_ that? No, you know what—I don't want to know. Everyone says you're working on all sorts of weird spells, and I don't want any part of it. And _you_, Scorpius! I thought we were friends! Why would you _ever_ make me come talk to these two … these two … _snakes?_"

Scorpius raised his hands helplessly. "I'm sorry, Kate, I really am, but they knew about your dad's campaign—everyone does now—and they said they wanted to help with his election." He glared balefully at Beatrice. "I didn't know they were crazy as well as horrible."

"I didn't hurt the cat, I promise," Calvin said, sounding sincere in spite of everything. "I just had an idea for a potion, and I wanted to see if the theoretical thaumaturgic base of the catalyzing spell would interact with the animal's electrical impulses and…" Calvin trailed off. "I am sorry, Kate Weasley. I would never hurt a pet."

Beatrice pursed her lips. "He really wouldn't," she said. "Scientists are notoriously unsocial, but Cal's much nicer than people give him credit for."

"But you're not," Kate said, amazed at her own daring.

"No," Beatrice said with a smile. "I'm not. _However_, I am very clever. Everyone in my family is Ravenclaw, you see, I'm just the aberration. I suppose you see why."

Kate was clutching Hannibal so tightly that he began to whip his tail against her cheek. She placed him carefully back in his cage.

"Well then," Beatrice said. "I suppose we're not going to be friends after all. No matter. You _will_ need us as allies, before this term is over. Scorpius was right—we do want to help with your father's election. The repeal of the International Statute of Secrecy is quite a grand endeavor, I'm sure you recognize. And I'm equally sure that your father—and your mother, for that matter, the formidable Edie Filbert, correct? Oh don't worry, we won't tell, I know it isn't public knowledge yet—have thought of everything they're going to need."

Kate was gaping again. She whirled on Scorpius. "Did you tell—"

"No, no I swear," Scorpius hissed. "But come on, if _we_ could figure it out, it's inevitable that _they_ would, isn't it? They know everything this goes on in this castle."

"And to think I thought that was Iggy's job," Kate muttered.

Beatrice laughed coldly. "And in another month or two, the general public! But I'll stay on course—your parents _think_ that they've thought of everything: money, of course, and support within the Wizengamot. Winning the public over's harder considering who they're up against, but I imagine they have a plan. Stranger things have happened." Beatrice leaned forward to get closer to Kate. "I really admire your mother."

"I'm sure she'd be just delighted." Kate had no idea she could make her voice sound that sarcastic.

"Anyway—they have all their _human_ bases covered. But I wonder if they've considered generating more support among the other magic-using sentient races. Centaurs? Can't help you with those—they're notoriously independent. I doubt they'll take kindly to being flushed out into the open. Giants? Now how would a silly schoolgirl like me find the time to seek out giants? It's not my field of interest."

"You're pontificating, Beata," Calvin said, looking amused. Beatrice rolled her eyes.

"Oh all right—it's just so rare to have an audience, Cal. But I'll get to the point, _finally_. The point is: I can deliver your father a minority group willing to support his campaign. Publicly. Vocally."

Kate blinked. "I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," Beatrice said, "that I have more influence with the Selkie colonies of Scotland than any man or woman alive." Beatrice sighed, exasperated. "You still don't understand, do you Kate. I'm talking about merpeople. I can get your father the mer-vote."


	6. How Medieval!

**How Medieval!**

Rose Weasley couldn't believe what she was reading.

"How _dare_ they!" she exclaimed, to no one in particular, as she sat at her favorite elliptical table in the library. "Those horrible, horrible … _Weasleys_!"

Rose's friend Preyanka raced over from an adjacent study carrel, grabbed Rose's hand, and sped her out the door—apologizing to a highly disapproving librarian on the way. Outside, Rose discovered to her eternal shame that she was sobbing.

"_Rose_," Preyanka soothed, not at all reproachful. "Rose, what's wrong?"

That's when Preyanka caught sight of the _Daily Prophet_ crushed in her closest friend's hand. She sighed.

Of course.

Outside the library, a beautiful willow (not at all the whomping kind) trailed its delicate branches on the grass. Plenty of younger Hogwartsians, mistaking the tree for its less winsome cousin on the grounds, stayed away. But Preyanka Singh knew that behind the rippling leaves there was a little carved stone bench, so old that the weight of countless generation of students had worn depressions into its surface, perfect for conversations not meant to be overheard. And for other things… as Preyanka knew, having visited the little secret grove with Duke Oldcastle after that one spectacular quidditch game when Duke made his most amazing save yet and—Well, Preyanka needed to focus on her friend right now, not on all the _other_ things besides quidditch that Duke was good at.

"Rose, come on, let's sit down sweetie." Preyanka shepherded the sniffling girl—so out of character, as Rose had never broken down in public like that before—to a spot on the ancient stone bench. Preyanka could only imagine how many Hogwarts girls had cried their eyes out there, out of sight of busybody classmates, in the last thousand years or so.

"I'm— I'm— so _sorry_, Pre," Rose sniffled. "I can't believe I—" (she hiccupped) "—made a scene like that. Oh! It's so embarrassing! Everyone's going to know about it by dinner and… and…"

"Well who cares what they think anyway?" Preyanka said with a huff. "Who cares what _anybody_ thinks? Anyone nosy enough and thoughtless enough to say _anything_ about you when they all know what kind of pressure you're under—well, they're not worth the time it takes to think about them."

"I guess so…"

"Well I'll do you one better. I _know_ so. So tell me what's wrong. It has something do do with your mum's campaign, doesn't it?"

Rose rubbed her eyes, now red and puffy. "Everything does these days," she said miserably. "I mean, of course I knew it would be bad. It's so close to the election now that things were bound to get negative, but it's so hard! Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey… they weren't my _favorites_ by any stretch of the imagination, but they're family! Or at least, they _were_ family. I don't know that I can even call them that anymore." She handed the crumpled copy of the _Prophet_ over to Preyanka wearily, and her friend's eyes moved rapidly over the dense columns of print.

_ACCUSATIONS FROM THE GRANGER CAMPAIGN SPARK VICIOUS BACKLASH FROM PRO-WEASLEY PINKSTONE ESTATE_.

_After Minister for Magic aspirant Hermione Granger-Weasley, hero of the Second War, called her rival Percy Weasley "dangerous and deluded" in a press conference last week for his determination , followers of both campaigns have been waiting with bated breath for the response. _

_Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger's brother-in-law, is also a veteran of the Second War—although of lesser fame—and currently the Head of the Department of Magical Security after a long stint in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Ms. Granger, after working as a Ministry auror under current Head Auror (and also brother-in-law) Harry Potter, took a leadership role in Magical Security as well and worked with Mr. Weasley in passing the Muggle Protection Act of 2001._

_This morning, Ariel Pinkstone of the Pinkstone Foundation for Free Magical Culture made this statement:_

"_Candidate Granger-Weasley's statement is a blatant example of character assassination intended to distract from the real issues of this campaign: extending full citizenship to Muggles and magic-users alike. The Pinkstone Estate was shocked to hear these words from Ms. Granger, considering her long history supporting freedom in the Second War. Clearly, her campaign is more concerned with the politics of fear and misdirection than with freedom from fear. As my great-great grandmother Carlotta Pinkstone once said: 'Using fear to inform public policy is the most obvious example of the magical community's long love-affair with the Middle Ages." On behalf of the Pinkstone Foundation, I implore Ms. Granger: Stop selling fear!"_

_Later that day, Weasley campaign agent Ignatius Weasley issued a brief statement from the campaign:_

"_The Percy Weasley 2020 campaign supports Ms. Pinkstone's assessment of Candidate Granger's recent comments, and exhorts the Granger campaign to join us in the 21__st__ century for a civilized debate."_

Preyanka had to read the article twice to accept the fact that the campaign was getting so nasty. Because behind the polite façade—there was real animosity there. Hermione Granger was "uncivilized"? Her opinions were "Medieval"? Percy Weasley was billing himself as the candidate of the future, of the modern world, and people were responding. Under the article a list of poll numbers showed that very clearly. Hermione Granger's lead had narrowed from 15 points to 7, nearly within the margin of error!

"Oh Rose, I'm so sorry…" Preyanka said. She didn't have much to offer in terms of political commentary, but she figured her friend needed comfort more than anything right then and there.

"It wouldn't be so bad if… if…" Rose jabbed a finger at Ignatius Weasley's in his picture, looking so self-righteous as he delivered the campaign statement over and over again in print. "If _he_ weren't right there on the front page. _Anybody_ could have given that statement. Anybody! But Uncle Percy let _Ignatius_ do it! Doesn't that prove they don't really care about their so-called _modern principles_? It's not about freedom. It's about power, plain and simple. No one on that side of the family's ever cared about anything except power, and they have the _gall_ to say _my mum_ is playing politics? How _dare_ they! How—"

Rose cut off her tirade mid-sentence. There, pulling back the trailing fronds of the weeping willow's curtain, was the last person in the world Rose wanted to see: Kate Weasley. And—oh Merlin help us—standing beside her was Scorpius Malfoy.

"Er… hi Rose," Kate said, looking genuinely apologetic. "I didn't meant to interrupt. We'll just be going now…"

Rose felt her cheeks burning with anger and frustration. Was Kate Weasley really as stupid as she looked? Oh, Rose knew that was uncharitable, but honestly—did she think she could say 'Hi Rose' and run away, like she wasn't part of all this, like she wasn't hanging around with that damn _Malfoy_ boy too? No. She wasn't going to get off that easily—not today.

"Have you read the paper today, Kate?" Rose asked, rising to her feet. "Seen what your brother's calling my mum? A fear-mongerer and political opportunist or worse? Did you read that?"

Kate looked supremely uncomfortable. "I try not to read the papers too much, Rose. It makes me too sad." Her eyes were imploring. "I don't want to fight with you. I really don't. I never wanted any of this to happen."

"Don't act so innocent," Rose spat. "You're just as bad as anyone else. Forget that you stood by and let your new boyfriend curse me last year? Forget that you stood by your _honorable_, _upright_ father all summer while he said terrible things about your own aunt? You're not that naïve, Kate!" Rose looked at Kate's trembling lip. "Or maybe you are."

Rose sank down onto the bench, buried her face in her hands, and shook with silent weeping.

_Just like the willow_, Preyanka thought mindlessly. _How perfect this is_.

Kate stepped forward with hand outstretched, instinctively wanting to comfort her cousin, but Preyanka imposed herself between them.

"I think it's time for you to go," she said firmly. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from Rose the rest of term."

"Is that a threat, Singh?" Scorpius asked, his eyes narrowed. Preyanka saw his hand drift to his left sleeve, and she'd have bet a galleon that he was reaching for his wand.

"Going to curse me too, Malfoy?" Preyanka asked. "I'm sure you're a wizard at the Dark Arts, but I think you'll find that I can be a real _bitch_ when we're talking about my friends. Get out of here."

Kate looked like she was about to cry too, now, but Preyanka turned her back before she could start to feel bad. And when she heard the two unwelcome visitors leave, she scribbled a note on the back of a scrap of the _Prophet_, folded it into an origami crane, and sent it winging across the grounds to find James Potter.

….

Kate and Scorpius found somewhere else to talk in private, Kate still looking like she could dissolve into waterworks at the next errant gust of wind.

"Don't you dare start crying," Scorpius said, jabbing a finger close to her face. "Or I really will stupefy you. My wand hand's itching."

Despite herself, Kate smiled.

"You're a good friend, Scorpius," Kate said with a sigh. "Though you probably shouldn't have reached for your wand like that. Preyanka's got a hot head, you know. She might come after _you_."

"Doubtful," Scorpius said, twirling his wand lovingly in hand. "That's one good thing about being a Slytherin. People are pretty loathe to mess with you."

"Then I'm glad I have so many new Slytherin acquaintances," Kate said. Her tone of voice made it clear that she was anything but.

They found themselves at the edge of the Lake. It was midday, the sun cold but bright overhead, and Kate saw a gaggle of particularly vain Hufflepuff girls trying to sun-tan. _If only that's the worst thing _I _had to worry about_, Kate thought. _Looking poorly all winter._

She and Scorpius sat down together on the embankment a meter above the water. It wasn't that far a drop, but Kate wouldn't want to go in there—it was only September, but the temperature was already dropping, and she knew the water would be frigid, however clear and blue the sky.

"So," Scorpius said, breaking the silence. "What do you think about the Lord and Lady?"

Scorpius had told her on the train that that's what Slytherins called Calvin and Beatrice. They certainly treated them that way; the other Houses steered clear of the sinister couple (_for that matter, _were_ they a couple—like, a couple couple?_ Kate wondered. _Was it even possible for people like them to have romantic feelings?_), but Slytherins came into contact with them often, in their common room or in the dungeons. Beatrice was Head Girl, after all (and a darn scary one at that), and often helped Professor Madrigal demonstrate spells for OWL and NEWT-level Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Calvin did the same for Professor Slughorn in Potions.

So Slytherins might not have been terrified of Cal and Beata, as they called each other, but they certainly treated them with deference. Scorpius told Kate that when Beatrice approached him and said she wanted to speak to Kate, it was—to borrow a phrase from one of her mum's Muggle movies—_an offer he couldn't refuse_.

"I think…" Kate said, pausing before she responded. She wanted to get the words right for once in her life. "I think they're not good people."

Well, so much for that.

"Because they're Slytherins?" Scorpius asked. He didn't sound offended—merely curious.

"No, it's not that," Kate said, frustrated for the millionth time in her life that she wasn't as good as Iggy or Arthur at articulating herself, wondering if maybe Rose was right and she _was_ stupid. "I mean, I guess being Slytherin and being, you know, _so very_ Slytherin makes them extra frightening, but I think what's worst is their… their… oh! I don't know what I'm trying to say, Scorpius! I've never met people like them. It's as though… well, you know how ambitious Ignatius is, right? They're like that. Except I don't think Ignatius would ever really hurt somebody to get ahead. Not _really_. I don't think Beatrice and Calvin have those sort of scruples."

"How very Slytherin of them," he commented, with a sideways smile.

"I don't mean to insult your House."

"Don't apologize—I'm inclined to agree with you. Although… I wonder if you're right about your own family."

Kate whipped her head around to face him, shocked. "Scorpius! You don't think Iggy's as awful as them, do you?"

"Not Ignatius, no," Scorpius conceded. "But your father… Kate, please don't be angry with me. It's as strange for me to have a friend at _all_ as it is for you to befriend a Slytherin. But I've been following the campaign all summer, and I know you have too but maybe you're too close to it to see. Kate, you're sixteen years old and you only just found out that your mother's been using an alias for your entire life. That your parents have been _planning_ for this moment for decades. Decades! What kind of people do that? Doesn't it strike you as a little… cold?"

Kate looked at him bleakly.

"I know I'm not very smart," she said quietly. "And I'm not brave, and I'm not interesting. I'm as much a Hufflepuff as your Lord and Lady are Slytherins. But I always thought… if nothing else… that I was a good person. And that I had a good family, with people who loved me, and did the right thing. And I'm not so dumb that I don't realize how much all that's come into question."

She shook her head.

"I want to do the right thing. And I want my dad to win, because maybe they lied to us—well, I guess it's not a maybe, it's a definitely—but I just can't believe that they don't really care about freedom and equality and all the things they say they do. I want them to win… but if winning means working with people like Beatrice and Calvin… I just don't know, Scorpius. I don't know if that's the right thing or not."

Scorpius closed his eyes. It was a hard question, and who was he to pass judgment on the Percy Weasley and his family? Just take look at _his_ family. _His_ father made Percy look like a saint.

Kate screeched, and Scorpius opened his eyes—just in time to see James Potter's fist crash into his nose.


	7. Status Quo Ante Bellum

**Status Quo Ante Bellum**

"Stop it! Stop it, James—you're hurting him!"

James could hear Kate shouting, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her batting futilely at Ravi, who was keeping her an arm's length from James. It was hardly the romantic embrace Kate and Ravi had imagine the year before—and thank Merlin for that. James rolled his eyes at the thought.

"That's kind of the point, Katie," he grunted, taking another swing at Scorpius, who was struggling to get to his feet. Scorpius tripped and fell onto his back, on the slippery autumn leaves coating the embankment.

"You know," James said through a clenched jaw, standing over Scorpius, whose nose was mangled and bloody. "Rose is like a sister to me. And _nobody_ pulls a wand on my sister."

Scorpius coughed and spat blood. His grimace was pink and red. "For the record," he choked. "I didn't _actually_ pull a wand on her." Scorpius may have been on his back beneath a looming James Potter, but he wasn't about to curl up and surrender. "Not this time, anyway."

"You little _shite_!" James shouted, whipping his own wand out from a back pocket. It was the weekend, and James had cast off his robes for a pair of faded Muggle jeans and a Rolling Stones t-shirt. Kate supposed he was trying to be ironic, or something. He didn't listen to Muggle bands.

"Don't be a coward, James!" Kate screeched, shouting being the only thing she could do, Ravi pinning her hands as he was.

"_What_ did you say?"

Kate knew that would get his attention.

"I _said_," Kate answered, shaking Ravi off of her, disgusted. "Don't be a coward. Are you really going to hit him while he's down? If you want to fight Scorpius, at least be a man about it and let him stand up. _You're_ the one who just pulled a wand on _him_."

James paused, and Kate could see her accusation flick across his face. Whatever else he was, James _was_ a Gryffindor, and he probably thought he was being chivalrous sticking up for Rose in this way (_how Medieval indeed,_ Kate thought), but he really couldn't reconcile beating an unarmed classmate with his sense of personal "honor."

"You're a prefect," James said suspiciously, eyeing Scorpius as he stood up painfully. Leaves were poking out of his white-blonde hair, and the right side of his face was smeared with dirt as well as blood. James, on the other hand, was unscathed. It did look like a lopsided fight. "How do I know you won't run off and tell a professor the second we let you go?"

Kate looked at him for all the world as though _he_ were the dim one.

"What do you think my mum and dad would do if people found out that I was involved in a fight? Trust me, this is something that needs to be kept secret—if you're going to be stupid enough to want a duel."

"When?" James asked, turning to Scorpius, who was calmly brushing down his pants. "Name a time and place, and I'll be there."

Scorpius shrugged. "How about here? The tree mostly blocks us from view of the castle, and no one's going to be watching from the Lake side, so why not?"

"Fine. Tonight, then, midnight."

"Midnight. How dramatic," Scorpius drawled. Kate felt a chill prick the hairs on the back of her neck. She was overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu—there was James with his black hair and hot-headed self-righteousness; there was Scorpius, pale and cool and collected. She felt like she was witnessing a fight between her Uncle Harry and his school rival, Scorpius's father Draco Malfoy. She'd heard all the stories.

"Wait—" Kate said. "I shouldn't have suggested that! This is stupid, it really is. Surely there's a better way to deal with all this. You don't have to duel!"

"Oh, I think they do, Kathryn," said a silken voice from behind her. Kate knew even before she turned around who she was going to see.

"Hello, Beatrice," Kate whispered.

"Oh, Merlin's extra toe! It's the bloody Head Girl!" James exclaimed. "Call for your mummy, did you Malfoy?"

"Now how could I have possibly done that?" Scorpius asked, looking mildly curious.

Beatrice smiled—beatifically—and opened her hands, palms up. "I just appear sometimes," she said. "Like a bad penny."

Kate could tell that James and Ravi were nervous. Beatrice Grave had every professor at Hogwarts wrapped around her lovely manicured fingers, but the students knew better. She and Calvin were _off_.

"Where's your boyfriend?" James asked with a shaky sort of bravado. "Torturing cats? Maybe bunny rabbits this time?"

Kate wondered if James had heard about Hannibal, or whether that was just one of the many rumors that followed Beatrice and Calvin around. She felt an inexplicable urge to defend Calvin—he hadn't, after all, hurt Hannibal one bit. And while he looked seedier than Beatrice, it was _she_ who scared Kate the most.

"No, not this afternoon. He's back in the common room. We just finished taking a swim." Beatrice yanked her long braid down from around the top of her head and wrung out the excess water into the grass. Kate gawped. _Swimming?_ Maybe Beatrice _hadn't_ been lying about the merpeople after all.

"In any case," Beatrice continued. "As Head Girl, it is incumbent upon me to break up illegal fights on the castle grounds. Oh, I know what you're thinking: 'This witch can't follow us around forever. We'll find a time and place she isn't watching.' And you're absolutely right. You could do that very easily; I can't imagine anything more boring than watching a couple of idiot sixth-years fight over some absurd breach of _honor_. There are more important things than family feuds." Beatrice gave Kate a pointed look. Kate shivered.

"Anyway, since I was in the area—" She waved in the direction of the Lake. "I figured I'd let you in on some non-public information. Mary and I" (and by Mary she meant Professor Madrigal, DADA instructor) "Have been organizing an exhibition for later this month. A dueling championship—fifth years and above only, of course. This is for _advanced_ spellcasters only. You all got your OWL scores, didn't you?"

She placed a finger to her sculpted lips. The rest of them stood listening, as though spellbound. "_You_" (she pointed at Scorpius) "got an O, didn't you? I imagine your father would tan your hide for anything less—so to speak." And to James: "You got an O too, naturally. _Your_ father's the most famous auror in history. The most famous living wizard, too. What a pedigree! Should we call you Prince Potter?"

"You tell me, _Lady_ Grave," James spat.

Beatrice beamed. "I think dear Kathryn didn't do nearly so well, did you dear? Did you manage an E? Your brother tutored you, I'm sure. But no, I think not. You only got an Acceptable, didn't you? I suggest you don't enter yourself in the lists."

Kate blushed to the roots of her vivid red hair.

"And Ravi the Ravenclaw. What did you get?" She paused. "Truth be told, I don't really care about _you_. You're hardly a part of this story, aren't you?" She brushed him away.

"That's my _friend_ you're talking about," James said quietly. He was furious. Kate could see that at an instant—but of course, Beatrice didn't care.

"James Potter, I very much hope to see you fight this month. I'd like to know if you're as good as your father."

She turned away, but extended her hand to Kate. "Kathryn, darling girl, shall we walk together?"

Kate didn't want to leave Scorpius alone with James and Ravi, but Beatrice's appearance had dropped the temperature of the fight. Kate knew they'd never pass up the chance to best each other in public. The feud could hold for a couple weeks.

Kate took Beatrice's proffered arm, and walked beside her to the edge of the Lake.

….

"So, Kathryn," Beatrice said, her bare legs dangling over the edge of the rickety wooden dock, toes trailing in the water. "Have you thought about our proposition?"

Kate _had_ thought about it, as a matter of fact. It was all she'd been _able_ to think about for days. And as she'd begun to tell Scorpius before James bloodied his nose (broke it, maybe, she mused. Scorpius really did need to get to the infirmary today), she felt torn.

Beatrice had been right about one thing: Kate hadn't heard a single conversation about non-human magical races at home all summer—and summer had been all Percy Weasley 2020, 24/7. Of course, she'd absorbed enough about politics from her brothers and parents to know that non-humans could not vote in the Minister for Magic elections. In fact, it wasn't until the last election (Kingsley Shacklebolt's re-election, for that matter) that the general magical public had gotten a voice at all. Before the Second War, the Wizengamot chose their leader almost autonomously.

And looked how well that had worked out.

It was Aunt Hermione who'd gone on record calling for a public referendum in Ministry elections, and the Wizengamot had given in. How could they not? She was _Hermione Granger_.

Well now that was coming back to bite her, because while the Ministry of Magic was wedded to the way things were and surely didn't want to see the ISS broken, there was a large segment of the population who weren't so satisfied with the _status quo ante bellum_. There was even a fringe group (and these people Kate's parents wouldn't even acknowledge, for their careers' sake) that said the Second War could have been avoided if Ministry officials had brought Muggle authorities into the loop—bring machine guns and automatic drones to bear on Death Eater hideouts.

Who could say whether that would have helped, but as Percy Weasley and his advisors had discussed (though he hadn't gone public with it yet), the campaign was almost ready to publicly assert something along the lines that Muggle awareness of the dangers from Death Eaters during the late 1990s could have reduced loss of innocent life, and possibly led to Voldemort's speedier capture.

But that was beside the point. The point was that for the first time the magical community had a real race on their hands. The Shacklebolt Honeymoon was over, and no matter who won—the world was going to be a different place.

That would affect the other magical races too.

"Have you… have you really talked to merpeople?" Kate asked. Part of her still couldn't believe what Beatrice and Calvin told her on the Hogwarts Express. It seemed so outlandish!

Beatrice smiled and patted Kate's knee maternally. Goodness, did this girl's moods change fast! "More than talked to them, Kathryn. I've lived with them." Beatrice glanced around surreptitiously, but the sun was setting, and no one was close enough to overhear. Even up on the embankment, Scorpius, Ravi, and James were gone.

"This past summer, I signed up for a study abroad course in Classics at Oxford." She shrugged. "That's what I told my parents, anyway, and I did travel to Greece with some Muggle college students, but that's as close as I got to a University class. Did you know there are still mer-colonies on Crete? The Selkies—" She gestured to the Lake again. "They told me. Greek merpeople. Think about it, Kathryn."

Kate did think about it. She gasped. "Sirens! You were with _Sirens?_"

Beatrice beamed at Kate, like she was a teacher whose less-than-bright student just made a great intellectual leap forward. "Exactly, Kathryn. Sirens. You've seen images of Selkies here, haven't you? Uglier than grindylows. But the Sirens—oh, Kathryn, you've never even _imagined_ a more beautiful man or woman."

Kate thought she might be able to.

"It was the Selkies who told me where to find them," Beatrice continued. "The Mermish clans are all jealous of each other—you think human politics are bad? You have no idea. And they're most jealous of each other's magic. Mer-magic isn't like ours, generally uniform across the board. There are many, many variations. And because they're so isolated in their various lakes and lochs, the Selkies are greedy for knowledge. They asked me to go to the Sirens and learn the enchantments they didn't know. It was not very hard—the Sirens want the Selkie magic just as much. They're not very nice people."

Kate had to choke back a scoff at that.

"So I went, and now every day I don't have class I come out here, and Calvin and I dive down to the village at the center of the Lake, and I teach them what I learned from the Sirens. Of course, I do keep _some_ things for myself."

Beatrice hissed something under her breath, her fingers working a complicated rhythm in front of her, and suddenly the air around her head started to shimmer and bend—like waves of heat off the sidewalk on a hot day.

Kate blinked, and when she looked at Beatrice again, the older girl's skin was glowing; her hair was sleek and shining; her lips were redder than usual, and her eyes a crystalline blue, not the flat gray she'd had a moment ago. When she spoke, her voice was lilting like a melody. Kate was entranced.

"Not even Cal knows I can use the Sirens' glamour on myself. It's true about them luring sailors to their deaths, in past times. I haven't tried that out myself yet, but I think you can see that the effect is quite striking." She sighed, and snapped. The charm was gone. She was Beatrice Grave again—beautiful, but not nearly so eerily alluring.

"That's… that's amazing," Kate whispered, truly in awe.

Beatrice shrugged. "It wasn't so hard to learn. It's easier if you're already pretty. I would offer to teach you, Kathryn—but let's be frank, you're not a very powerful witch. I don't think you're capable of wandless magic."

The funny thing was, Kate didn't feel insulted. Not even Ignatius could do wandless magic—not even her father, to Kate's knowledge. It was something people talked about in reference to the most famous witches and wizards: Albus Dumbledore, for one of the greatest examples. Carlotta Pinkstone could do it too—it's how she escaped from Azkaban the first time (Kate knew that from Ignatius, who always did his research).

"So now you know one of my secrets," Beatrice said. "As I know one of yours—your mother's secret history, that is. And aren't shared secrets the foundation of mutual trust?"

Kate nodded warily, though something about that analysis smelled… well… fishy to her.

"Good. Now I know you want to help your father, so I'm going to tell you exactly what I want you to do. Listen very carefully: Nobody knows that I have these ties to the Selkies here at the Lake. No one but Calvin, and he won't tell because he has his own, shall we say, _alternative_ magical projects—mutual secrets, you see? So when we reveal our great talents to the wider world, it's going to cause quite a stir. It _has_ to. That's why, on the day of the dueling competition, you are going to send an anonymous owl to the London _Daily Prophet_ office, stating that two Slytherin students—make sure to emphasize the _Slytherin_ part—are endangering the student body with their unorthodox magic. And once you've done that, you're going to send another owl to Headmistress Harridan, at St. Mungo's. She's not so sick as everyone says-just enjoying the break. But the _Prophet_ first, it has to be first. And only then, Harridan. Don't get distracted by Potter and Malfoy and their petty feud. And _don't_ do it until Cal and I are about to duel—we'll be in the finals. Do you understand?"

"But… how is this going to help my father?" Kate asked.

"It's going to get Cal and me in the papers," Beatrice said. The word _obviously_ was implied at the end of her sentence. "It will give us some credibility—after all, why would Percy Weasley listen to anything we said without proof of our power? I mean, you didn't think I wanted you to just ring him up on a _phone_, did you?"

Kate was cold, so cold all of a sudden, and she didn't think it was just the sunset. If what Beatrice said was true, then Kate had every reason to be plain terrified of her. And if she really did get in the papers—if people know just how much magical power was out there waiting to be snapped up by the enterprising, if restrictions were not so, well, restricting—then the world would never go back to the way it was before.

"How do you know it'll be you and Cal in the finals?" Kate asked, just plain curious.

Beatrice smiled, as though she could read her mind, and Kate thought she felt the barest residue of the Sirens' glamour.

"Of course it will be us. Who else is there?"


	8. The Bad Boys

**The Bad Boys**

When Calvin joined Beatrice at the empty Slytherin table, moments after he was Sorted, she gripped him by his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth—the whole school watching.

He'd loved her ever since.

Not that he and Beatrice ever touched after that day, no hand-holding under the breakfast table, not even the chaste pecks on the cheek that girls sometimes gave their friends. Calvin knew what the kiss had been—adrenaline, that's all, adrenaline and the blissful relief of knowing they didn't have to go it alone. It was innocent, two ten-year-olds implicitly understanding they were going to need each other over the course of the next seven years. Calvin knew that. And he knew that what he'd told the Sorting Hat was true: he wasn't going to let anything happen to his one and only friend.

Their first year, Calvin and Beatrice were a world unto themselves. None of the other students—in any House—would so much as look them in the eye in the corridors. At first Calvin thought that they were shunning them because they were Slytherins, and Slytherins were beneath contempt. But quickly he realized differently.

They weren't avoiding the two children because they were prejudiced; they were avoiding them because they were afraid. (Though it seemed to Calvin that such unfounded fear was its own sort of prejudice.)

Beatrice almost immediately began to use that fear and distance to her advantage. Rumors started to circulate about her and Calvin (but mostly Calvin)—and he could never be sure that Beatrice hadn't started them herself. In any case, the vague unease surrounding the Slytherin Adam and Eve soon solidified into something more concrete. Their ostracism was institutionalized. And by second year, the other students were so spooked by the mere presence of Calvin and Beatrice in the classroom that their professors easily consented to Beatrice's request for independent-study electives. Beatrice studied runes and linguistics; Calvin chose potions and arithmancy.

The summers spent "tinkering" with his chemistry set and computers had served Calvin well—Professor Slughorn was so impressed with Calvin's ability to intuit the properties of brews, and improvise on adaptations, that he was teaching OWL-level potions work to Calvin in his third year. By his fourth year, Calvin was only pretending that Slughorn could teach him anything new at all.

With regular classwork such a breeze, Calvin turned his attention to his real passion: Muggle technology. It intrigued him that his electronics from home would go on the fritz as soon as the Hogwarts Express dropped him off at the castle. After testing the distances involved, Calvin had a shipment of various Muggle gadgets sent to Hogsmeade (laptops, tablets, cell phones and smart phones, blenders and toasters and DVD players, iPads and iPods and those little pedometers his granddad used when the doctor told him to lose some weight if he didn't want to get hypertension). He took out a "student loan" from a Muggle bank and rented a room above an elderly woman's shop in Hogsmeade, where he brought his tools and experiments and, incidentally, a baby grand piano he began to "tinker" with too. His knowledge of Arithmancy shot into the stratosphere. He kept this from Professor Vector—Calvin saw the way Slughorn sidled past him in the halls, nervous and edgy.

It was about this time that Beatrice began her midnight-to-dawn swims in the Lake.

More young Slytherins trickled into Hogwarts with every September, and while Calvin was more concerned with his hybrid meta-mathematimagic than the Hogwarts social scene, Beatrice cultivated the new crop of Housemates with the greatest care. She helped first-years with their schoolwork; she interceded with professors on their behalf; she broke up fights with her smooth tongue and unflappably calm demeanor; she made them less ashamed, and less afraid, to be Slytherins.

Then she laughed to Calvin about how stupid and useless they were in the common room late at night.

The only thing Calvin and Beatrice couldn't do, it seemed, was find any reason to take an interest in quidditch. Oh, Beatrice pretended every once in a while—she said she wanted to "study the natives."

It was Beatrice's sociological interest in Hogwarts quidditch rivalries that led to Calvin's first—and only, up until now—duel with a classmate.

By fifth year, not even her eldritch reputation and association with spooky Calvin Pale could hide the fact that Beatrice was unusually beautiful. He noticed how the sixth and seventh-year boys looked at her when she practiced diving at the Lake. He could see them counting every droplet of water glistening on her nearly-naked body. And one boy in particular, kept his eyes on Beatrice.

Duke Oldcastle, Gryffindor Quidditch keeper and general Hogwarts heartthrob.

_Well, well, well._ Calvin couldn't wait for Beatrice to cut him down to size—it's not as though she'd ever shown interest in, well, anybody for that matter. Not even Calvin, who knew better than to push his luck.

Imagine Calvin's shock when Beatrice agreed to go out with Duke on a snowy Hogsmeade weekend in March.

"It's what normal people, _do_, Calvin," she told him.

"Since when do you care about being normal?" he retorted, not quite managing to keep all the jealousy out of his voice. Beatrice seemed amused.

"Oh, I don't," she said, matter-of-fact. "But it can't help to _appear_ a little more normal. I am a prefect now, after all, or didn't you notice? I wouldn't be surprised, as you're scribbling equations half the time and poking around in the innards of Muggle laptops the other half. I notice that _you're_ not a prefect. They had to promote a fourth-year early, you know. Nobody thought you were… suitable."

Calvin felt his cheeks blaze. "_Was_ it you, Beata, who started all the rumors about me? Does it suit you to have 'Creepy Cal' lurking about so you don't look so damn terrifying?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice was light, playful.

"Honest, Beata. Why is everyone more scared of me than of you?"

Beatrice cocked her head to the side, eyes glittering like a bird's. "Because I make an effort. Though I agree—it is ironic. You're a much nicer person, deep down. But it's not hard to mistake unsocial for _anti-_social, and so what if I stirred the pot a little? You don't mind. You don't _want_ to interact with anyone else. And nobody expects a sociopath to be the social butterfly."

"So, what, Oldcastle's your _disguise_?" Calvin was incredulous. "You're going out with him to trick people into trusting you?"

Beatrice smiled brightly. "It _is_ a good plan, isn't it? Tell me, Cal—how do you I look? Pretty? It's a first date, so I want to be modest."

Beatrice stood and spun on the tip of her right foot. She wore a long gray knit dress that would have been plain on anyone else but, in Beatrice's case, only drew attention to her slender figure and delicate features. Her dark auburn hair hung, for once, long and loose down her back.

Calvin shook his head wearily.

"Oh come now, Cal," Beatrice said, taking his hands in hers, intertwining their fingers. He felt his hands begin to sweat. "You're my best and only friend in this whole miserable school. I don't want you to be upset at me for something that doesn't even matter. You're a scholar and a scientist, and that's why I love you so much. Treat this like an academic problem. Dispassionately."

"Oldcastle's a prat."

"I can take care of myself, Cal, but thanks for the concern."

She grabbed her purse, and left the common room with a click of her boots on the stone floor.

Calvin waited five minutes, and followed her.

So he was jealous. So what? It didn't mean he didn't have good reasons for distrusting Duke Oldcastle. Really, _Oldcastle?_ He _bragged_ about all the girls he'd been with, and laughed about how stupid and useless they were afterwards (Calvin decided not to explore that thought much further). Beatrice knew his reputation, and she could hold her own against just about anybody, but he doubted she'd heard the things Duke said when there were only boys around—plus Calvin Pale, practically invisible—and the niceties of polite conversation crashed and burned.

Duke Oldcastle was not a good person.

….

Professor Madrigal tried to quiet the students with a timid flourish of her hands, but when that didn't work, she resorted to magic.

"Sonorus," she said, poking her wand under her chin. "Students… oh, students… welcome to our first annual Wizard Duel House Championship! Did you…? Students?"

They were still talking.

This puzzled Professor Madrigal, who had seen the commanding Professor Harridan use the charm to great effect at other school-wide events. But then, Professor Harridan had always been such a daunting presence, and Mary Madrigal was a half-slip of a woman so quiet and unassuming that a prefect when she was a second year tried to shoo her out of the common room thinking she was a ghost. And not as a joke either.

Always the dutiful Head Girl, Beatrice Grave appeared at Madrigal's side.

"Professor? Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, Beata!" Mary said, relieved. "I don't know why I'm not projecting. I tried _sonorous_ like Hildebrand used to do, it always worked for her, it is _sonorous_ isn't it? Do you think someone's tampered with my wand as a prank?"

Mary Madrigal had a terror of pranks, as all wise new teachers do. She knew she was easy to pick on, having failed at every turn to cultivate an authoritative presence in the classroom. It couldn't have helped, either, that the students had seen Professor Harridan push her about all year. But no, no, Mary thought to herself, she was a good teacher, and one shouldn't speak ill of the ill (Mary Madrigal suspected that if she did, Harridan would come back and haunt her forever when she died, which could be any day now according to the St. Mungo's nurses).

"Professor…" Beatrice said gently. "I believe someone's replaced your wand with a quill."

Mary looked at the ink-dripping feather clasped in her frail, fluttery hand.

"Oh! Well so they have! I mean, so I have. Unless, you don't think it was a prank, do you?"

"I don't think so, Professor," Beatrice replied. "I think that's your wand behind your ear."

"Oh!" Mary exclaimed, retrieving the pesky thing. "Well, so it is! That's wonderful! _Sonorus, sonorous!_ And welcome students to the First Annual Wizard Duel House Championship!"

Beside her, Beatrice caught the eye of a plump red-haired girl amongst the other students. _Soon_, Beatrice mouthed.

"All right now!" Mary continued. "The brackets are on the walls, and they'll be updated throughout the day. And remember: absolutely no unforgiveable curses!" She laughed. "I don't know why I even have to say that, it should be so obvious! I know we're all good friends and no one wants to actually hurt anyone else…"

In her excitement that she hadn't been pranked by some classroom jokester after all, Mary's voice enjoyed an extra-enhanced volume, even beyond the workings of the spell. She was louder than she'd ever heard herself—about, she would surmise, half the volume of the average fifth-year prefect giving a lecture to some troublemaker. And that was just fine with her.

Mary smiled at Beatrice, and Beatrice smiled back. "How pleasant a girl she is," thought Mary, not for the first time. "You'd never guess she were a Slytherin." Not at all like that other Slytherin, the frowning one she was always beside (and how had they ended up friends anyway? Such a pleasant girl and a cold fish indeed). She caught his eye across the room, as he shepherded the Slytherin first years onto their benches along the walls of the Great Hall. Mary looked away quickly. She didn't like that boy, who frowned and never said much.

But of course, Calvin Pale didn't care either way what Professor Madrigal thought of him. He had a larger world to impress, and today was the day he'd do it. He saw the fifth-years preparing for the first round, and flashed back to another day, another duel.

"So let's have a fun, safe day, and learn about Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

James Potter cracked his knuckles. Scorpius Malfoy smiled coldly.

….

Duke Oldcastle took Beatrice to lunch at Hogsmeade, and brought her back to the castle just as the sun was beginning to set. Calvin's hands were freezing—he'd forgotten his gloves in his haste, but he wasn't about to let the couple out of his sight. Like he'd said, Duke was a prat. And Calvin, pale as his name and practically thin enough to hide behind a lamppost, had no trouble following the two around all day.

Everything had gone exactly like first dates were supposed to go. Calvin wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved—probably a little of both. Duke had played his part as the gallant Gryffindor, pulling out Beatrice's chair in the café, taking her arm as they walked through the snowy street. And now the date was about to end how they usually ended at Hogwarts, with an embarrassed kiss under the old weeping willow with its little stone bench. That tree and that bench had probably seen more kissing Hogwarts students than Calvin cared to count. _He_ certainly didn't want to see _this_ couple share their first kiss. He sighed and decided to head back to the Slytherin common room and wait for Beatrice there; she'd only be a few more minutes. He could listen to her ridicule Duke, and that would be a small consolation from the girl he loved.

He was a full quidditch pitch-length away when he heard the strangled screaming.

Whipping his wand from his pocket, Calvin raced back toward the willow. He ripped back the dangling branches to find Beatrice pinned against the trunk of the tree, Duke's burly left arm pressing against her neck as his right hand fumbled around with the hem of her dress, now pulled up to her thigh. Beatrice wasn't screaming anymore—her face was turning a horrible red-purple color, though her hands were still clawing at Duke's arm and one of her boots crunched down on his instep.

"Bitch!" Duke exclaimed. His left hand, gripping her long hair, yanked down. Beatrice's head jerked to the side. Calvin didn't hesitate a second.

"_Crucio!"_ he said, hardly more than a whisper. But he meant it, and that's all that mattered.

Duke fell to the ground in a heap, his fingers bending in impossible ways. Calvin had targeted the assailant's hands.

"Don't you ever touch her," Calvin said, releasing Duke from the grip of the curse. Duke's eyes were streaming tears, and he still sprawled on the ground. "If you do, I _will _kill you."

Beatrice stared at Calvin, eyes red. A bruise was forming on her cheek, and her perfect lips were cut.

"You were following us," she said flatly. Her eyes were dull, and her expression was blank.

"Yes."

"That's creepy, Cal."

Then she laughed, and it was more like a sob, and they left Duke Oldcastle there because really—who was he going to tell?

….

James spun his wand deftly between his fingers. He was next—him and bloody Scorpius Malfoy. James spotted Scorpius's bright blonde head in the Hufflepuff section, of all places, bent close to Kate's.

Bloody Kate Weasley. How the hell had she gotten mixed up with Slytherins? Frankly, he didn't want to know. She was hardly family these days anyway. He looked away, and practiced couple defensive spells under his breath.

Scorpius was arguing with Kate.

"You don't have to do it, you know," he said. "She's so confident that she's got you under her thumb that she probably won't even bother to double-check that you're going to go through with it! If you don't send the owls, their chance at publicity's gone, and the professors will be keeping such a close eye on them that they won't get a second chance—not before the election, anyway. Your father has a good shot already. Is it really worth getting involved with people like… well, people like Beatrice and Calvin?"

Kate had her hands folded in her lap, eyes downcast. Scorpius was saying everything she'd been thinking all day. When she raised her head to look at him straight, her expression was bleak.

"You said my dad... and my mum… you said they might not be as, well, as upright as I always thought. You're the one who said that, Scorpius."

"I know, I know, but I shouldn't have. Who am I to talk? I was wrong. Kate, listen, I was—"

"Right." Kate shook her head sadly. "You were right all along. They're not good people. None of us are. And anyone who ever thought the world would _magically_ become some perfect place just because Uncle Harry killed Voldemort is just plain naïve."

"Kate…" Scorpius said. "You've changed. You were never a fatalist before. You were always so…"

"Cheerful and good and kind and nice?" she asked. Her voice was harder than he'd ever heard. "And stupid too. And naïve. Well I don't want to be that way anymore. I can't afford to."

She looked him in the eye. "This is just the way the world works now, Scorpius, and it's time I get used to it. So go on, then. Go humiliate James in front of the whole school. What's it matter? That's what my parents want to do to Aunt Hermione. And we all have to grow up sometime."

"SCORPIUS MALFOY, SLYTHERIN, AND JAMES POTTER, GRYFFINDOR, TO THE CENTER OF THE FLOOR!"

The Head Girl had taken over Professor Madrigal's duties as announcer. Beatrice had a much more commanding presence.

Scorpius joined James in the middle of the Great Hall. He couldn't believe what Kate had just said—Kate! Kate the Hufflepuff!

This Kate wasn't the same girl he'd met last September in Muggle Studies class, bubbling with cheerful enthusiasm for school and unsinkable optimism for the future. It had astounded him to meet someone so perpetually sunny, and, in a way, he'd envied her. To grow up believing in the benevolence of the universe, in the essential goodness of humankind. That sort of attitude was beyond his comprehension. But to see her lose it like this—it almost broke his heart.

"This has been a long time coming, Malfoy," James said as they slowly circled each other, both of them waiting for the other to make the first move.

"We all have to grow up some time," Scorpius said quietly.

James paused in confusion. "What?"

It was only a moment's pause, but a moment was all any halfway decent wizard needed to disarm an opponent, and Scorpius was far better than halfway decent. He raised his wand—and tossed it to the ground at James's feet.

"I forfeit," Scorpius said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I forfeit!"

He could feel two hundred pairs of eyes staring at him (the Slytherin eyes boring holes into his back—they'd been waiting for this match as eagerly as James, apparently).

Scorpius pushed through them to find Kate, clutching a hand to her heart.

"Oh, Scorpius!" she exclaimed. "That was so brave!"

He smiled. "Don't you see? It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be dog-eat-dog all the time. You _don't_ have to do what Beatrice and Calvin told you to do."

For a moment, Scorpius expected to see the old Kate again. She'd jump up and down, laughing, and hug him. Except she didn't. She just shook her head.

"It's too late," Kate said. "I sent the owls this morning… Beatrice wanted me to make sure they got there in enough time."


	9. The Wizard Duel

_**A/N: **__Many thanks to all my readers for sticking with me. There's something fun about writing two such horribly unpleasant characters as Cal and Beata. __Maybe there's something wrong with me for it, but the truth is, I kind of like them. Hey, at least one of us is having fun._

_It's been a week-long marathon writing these eight chapters, so while the story will continue (I have plans), please consider this a "mid-season break," so to speak. And tune in next time for the return of our old favorites Percy and Edie! They have some plans too._

….

**The Wizard Duel**

Duke Oldcastle wore his quidditch uniform to the tournament, the crimson and gold cape the brightest thing in the room. His hair slicked back expertly (by some potion or pomade, Beatrice imagined), his perfect white teach gleaming above that chiseled jawline, Duke no doubt made most of the girls in the room swoon. Beatrice knew better. What a different picture he was from Calvin, who wouldn't know how to strut or peacock about had he wanted to. And he didn't want to. He'd already bested Duke once before.

Calvin removed his black outer robe, and without it he looked spindly and pale—like some attenuated subterranean creature who had grown up never seeing the sun. Perhaps, Beatrice mused, that was not so far from the truth. By day Calvin stalked the dungeons, doing some hybrid potions-arithmancy work that Professor Slugworth put untidily into the category of "Independent Study." When classes got out early for a big quidditch game, Calvin remained inside to work. Beatrice liked to make up stories about him: "Once, a first-year ran to Slugworth in terror whimpering that the Bloody Baron wouldn't leave his bedroom. It was just Cal. They were roommates." "Once, Calvin stayed up so long working in the dungeons that he completely reversed his internal clock and spent a week going to noon classes at midnight." "Once, Calvin watched a man die just so he'd be able to see thestrals."

"Only one of these stories is false," Beatrice would say. "I bet a galleon you can't tell me which."

Calvin meticulously rolled his sleeves up above the elbow. He was pale indeed, and lean, but however fragile he looked next to bulky Duke Oldcastle (who could practically block a quidditch goal hoop just by hovering in front of it) Calvin had a swimmer's wiry muscles and a sinister sort of spectral demeanor that was intimidating in itself. And there, in his shirtsleeves and old-fashioned suspenders, his burnished copper hair short and neat, his black slacks perfectly ironed, Calvin Pale looked to Beatrice like the 19th-century villain of a Jules Verne novel. She felt her heart pounding.

Spectators had gathered at opposite sides of the great hall for this duel—Slytherins versus Gryffindors, as always, cheering for their standard-bearers. Calvin found it tedious, the pomp and circumstance and ritual rivalries. It was one of the reasons he avoided sporting events. So Calvin did indeed realize that his display of spellcasting prowess was really quite out of character. He considered ceremony a waste of time, and the cheering was growing mildly irritating. Unlike Oldcastle and his like, Calvin did not feed off the spotlight. When he and Beatrice debuted their pioneering thaumaturgic work, she would make the speeches and take the interviews. She was at ease on the stage. She had a certain glamour to her—when she cared to use it.

Beatrice's duel had been the most exciting yet; there really wasn't much that Calvin could do to compete with her in terms of theatricality. Maybe after the botched Potter-Malfoy pairing she'd felt she needed to be particularly spectacular. She had stepped onto the floor with her long dark hair coiled in a braid around her head like a crown. When her opponent (a swaggering Ravenclaw boy whose name Calvin had not bothered to remember) grazed Beatrice's head with a puerile water spell, her braid unwound and rewound itself into a roiling mass of snakes—a highly aesthetic variation of _serpensortia_ that she had developed herself for fun one weekend.

"Wizards, to your marks!" (Professor Madrigal, barely audible over the cheering. Such absurdly deafening cheering. But what could Calvin do? He and Beatrice were heroes to this poor second-generation Slytherin house.)

Duke Oldcastle swaggered to his side of the hall, raising his wand above his head in some flamboyant dueling gesture he must have gotten from a bad comic book. Calvin held his wand at his side, his arms loose and relaxed. He glanced at Beatrice on the Slytherin side, joined by a few Ravenclaw friends who looked highly uncomfortable rooting for Cold Calvin Pale. Beatrice pantomimed clapping, rolled her eyes, gave him a closed-mouth smile.

Gave him an idea.

"Wizards ready … and … DUEL!"

In a split-second, even before Duke Oldcastle finished his ridiculous wand-spinning prelude to an actual spell, Calvin flicked his wand and watched the Gryffindor star Keeper's eyes go wide. For a moment, no one watching realized what had happened. Oldcastle was shaking his wand furiously and opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Nothing came out of either wand or mouth. The Great Hall went silent, and Calvin inhaled the stillness. Like the dungeons after the first-year classes left. Like the Slytherin common room at 3 a.m., the Great Squid sliding past the porthole window, just one massive bulbous eye visible beyond the glass. Silence. Calvin let it settle.

And then, deliberately, Calvin crossed the cleared space of the Great Hall until he stood a mere meter in front of Oldcastle, the oaf.

"Just like old times, eh?" Calvin whispered. "Expelliarmus."

And just like that, it was over.

The Gryffindors declared it was foul play, but they were just sore losers. Had no one really ever cast _Silencio_ against an opponent in a duel before? And besides, Oldcastle was a seventh-year. It was hardly Calvin's fault that the idiot didn't know how to cast spells wordlessly. How did he expect to pass his N.E.W.T.s?

….

It was really happening. Beatrice knew that it would come down to her and Calvin—they weren't famous for no reason, and they were both taking their N.E.W.T.s in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and they'd both probably get Os, and they both used the Slytherin Library of Curses and Imprecations, and neither of them knew a more capable opponent than the other, but still … somehow Beatrice hadn't really believed her plan would come to fruition so damn _easily_. If nothing else, it would be a good fight.

The whole room had hushed, and everyone, absolutely everyone, was crowding along the walls of the Hall to watch the final match. Beatrice could see expressions of bafflement on some faces—who do you root for when the combatants are both Slytherins?

Well Beatrice, obviously. Public opinion was always a popularity contest. But even so, Beatrice wondered if she'd hear cheers from the Gryffindor section. That would be something strange indeed.

"You know, Cal," Beatrice called. "That mums-the-word trick can only work once. And it won't work on me."

(Some of the students laughed.)

"I know," said Calvin simply. He had removed his outer robe and stood there carefully rolling up his shirtsleeves again, as though they were about to have fisticuffs and he didn't want to lose a button. "I know you're an excellent silent spellcaster."

"Why, thank you." Beatrice retained her robes but was deftly braiding her hair back up around her head in the coil that had become her hallmark.

"Not at all. I see you practicing in the common room, practicing in the courtyard, studying in the library." He flexed his fingers. "You work so hard, Beata Grave. You really ought to let your hair down some time."

Beatrice felt her pulse jump. Calvin smiled at her.

"I'm not afraid of snakes, you know," he said.

She shrugged, and let the braid fall down. "No, I imagine you're not."

And that was the end of the banter. The crowd was pleased; they'd done their duty. Beatrice took a deep breath—her heart was still racing. He looked so confident just standing there, no strutting around, no peacocking like Oldcastle, just standing there with his wand at his side, like he wasn't even planning to duel. But that was his trick, Beatrice thought. He hardly moved his hands at all, so no one could tell what he meant to cast.

He was so brilliant, Beatrice thought with a sigh, as brilliant as her. And then, with surprise: I'm going to try to beat him.

Beatrice took another breath, and with a rapid flick of her own wrist she blacked the windows and snuffed out the candles. It was completely dark, and by the time Calvin got the light in again (only a second later), Beatrice had disappeared.

Calvin grinned. She was so incredibly talented. She was so incredibly—

"_Μπορεί να ψιθυρίζουν φίδια στα πόδια σας. Σχοινιά μπορείτε να δέσετε στη γη. Η Θεά Μητέρα θα παγώσει εστία σας. Και βροχή θα στραφούν σε πάγο και χιονόνερο!"_

Calvin heard the first line of the chant begin behind him—and there she was, Beata looking wild and wicked at the end of the Great Hall, standing on the Slytherin table. This was Beatrice's weakness—she couldn't cast nonhuman magic silently. This piece, Calvin knew, was an adaptation of an ancient Greek Siren curse. He felt it begin to work as he walked toward her; it was like walking through water.

For the sake of their audience, he knew, Beatrice repeated the incantation in English, singing the melody in her crystalline soprano voice, the voice that could drown a sailor.

_Serpents whisper 'round your feet. Tethers bind you to the earth. Mother Goddess, freeze his hearth. And rain will turn to ice and sleet._

Calvin could feel the students around the edges of the hall shiver and begin to move around in their places. This wasn't like any magic they'd seen before. This wasn't magic _anyone_ had seen before.

And the room was definitely getting colder as Beatrice repeated the chant. Clouds rumbled in the sky overhead, and the air felt denser, thicker somehow. This was powerful stuff, Beatrice's spell. Calvin knew she'd been working on something ridiculously arcane, but he'd never suspected this. The students were restless. They were frightened.

Calvin cast a protective bubble of warm yellow light around himself as the ceiling began to rain—just in time, too. The students in the crowd shouted and screeched, covering their heads, but they could have saved their breath. The raindrops never reached them: Beatrice was collecting them in her hands.

She had tossed aside her wand—he saw it lying there, forlorn, on the rough oak of the table.

_Accio!_ he cast silently, and the wand sped toward him. Beatrice, high on her table, ignored Calvin's theft. She had both hands wrist-deep in the water, kneading it, rolling it between her fingers like a baker rolled dough. And all the while she kept muttering to herself. Her concentration was perfect.

That's what he had to break.

Armed with two wands now, Calvin began to steal from the students surrounding them. With his wand he took a sweater; with hers a pair of shoes. The students who suddenly found themselves missing various items of clothing exclaimed in outrage—until they saw what he was making.

Out of the borrowed clothes and shoes and books, Calvin was making the figure of a man—an animated magical automaton. With a sweep of both wands, Calvin picked up every last quill in the room (one from right behind Professor Madrigal's ear), and gave his manikin wings.

The students _oooohhhed_ and _aaaahhhed_.

Like a puppetmaster managing his marionette, Calvin used the two wants to send the figure flying toward Beatrice, whose wandless hand motions grew ever more rapid and complex. The creature was a yard from Beatrice when, suddenly, the amorphous ball of water between her hands burst into the form of a massive squid, as though all this time Beatrice was hatching it in a water egg.

Calvin's flying man swept a wing through one of the squid's tentacles, which dissolved into mist over the heads of a group of Hufflepuff second-years. But the next time wasn't so easy—Beatrice, still muttering, and never taking her eyes from the squid-golem, was solidifying the thing into, as the chant had implied, ice and sleet. Its tentacles were suddenly sharper, lethal, ripping the flying man's borrowed sweater to shreds. A thought flitted by in Calvin's head: _I'll have to pay the kid back, whoever it belonged to._ But that was later. First he had to beat Beatrice.

At long last Beatrice descended from the table. The squid floating above her head, she turned to face Calvin. Her face was effulgent with light—the cool aqua light of the Slytherin common room at twilight, when the sun set over the Lake. The green-blue glow of the Selkie twilight.

Calvin grinned. This was about to get fun.

"EVERYONE … _STOP!_"

A beam of red light shot across the hall, catching Beatrice's squid in what might have been a massive eye and shattering it into a thousand bits of ice shrapnel. The students screamed, and Beatrice rolled her eyes. A drop of blood dripped down her nose; one of the ice fragments had cut her on the forehead.

Calvin, seeing where this was heading, dropped his arms. The flying man crumpled to the floor.

"BEATRICE GRAVE AND CALVIN PALE, YOU WILL COME TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!"

Imagine that—Headmistress Harridan, back from St. Mungo's. Beatrice looked puzzled, an unusual expression to see on her face. Harridan, of all their professors, had always been the most supportive of their forays into alternative magics. Of course, she hadn't been away until now just how _far_ they'd forayed, but still. No need to stop the duel. Now they'd never know who'd have won (though in terms of theatrics Beatrice had, once again, taken the cake).

"Why so glum, Beata?" Calvin said under his breath as they stood together in the center of the room. He handed back her wand. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Well of course it is," she responded. "I just don't understand why in Merlin's name she would _stupefy_ the damn things. Talk about endangering students!"

As though Beatrice cared about endangering students. Probably she was miffed that she didn't get more time to show off.

Beatrice strode haughtily out the door, her face once again bearing its radiant, self-assured expression. Calvin wondered why—until he saw the _Daily Prophet_ reporters crowding the entrance to the Great Hall. So Kate Weasley had done her job after all. He'd been thinking she might change her mind.

As Calvin followed Beatrice out the door, he caught sight of Kate's round face, pale with astonishment. Her lower lip was trembling.

"Don't cry, Katie," Calvin said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "You did well."

"Please, Cal-"

Calvin saw her mouth continue to move, but he couldn't hear her over the excitement of the room. He thought she might have said the word "evil." She shouted again.

By the time Calvin realized what she'd said, he was swallowed up by the crowd of reporters, and Kate Weasley was gone.

_"Please, Cal- Don't use it for evil!"_


End file.
